As to why Koenigsegg doesn't get the rep, I'll take the outside opinion that it's because their name is too inaccessible whereas "Bugatti" slips easily into rap lyrics.
Ferraris, Porsches and similar are somewhat attainable, which, I think, helps with their being symbols, since most people have already actually seen them and know they're real. A Koenigsegg is as good as a story. Hell, I live in Paris and I've never actually seen one. Porches and Ferraris? They're seemingly everywhere.
P.S. I think it's telling that Porsche wasn't mentioned almost at all in English until the mid 1950s, given their role in the war!
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Ferrari%2CLamb...
Up until about 1948, Porsche was a pure development contractor mostly for the government. They only started manufacturing cars under their own brand in the early 50s (a few 356 built basically in a shed notwithstanding) after Ferry Porsche had taken over, and with the introduction of the 911 began a meteoric rise as a volume manufacturer for international markets.
Except for the Toyota nerds who will want to come talk to you about the LFA. Ask me how I know!
When it came out the LFA was widely lampooned by the car media for being too "soft", not fast enough, and generally lacking spirit and individuality. It's not pretty much recognized in hindsight that it's one of the single greatest cars ever made, and everybody who regularly buys/drives supercars regrets not buying one when they were still being produced.
Weirdly, many people realized this when it was new, that the LFA was actually excellent, but like anything else cars go through different hype cycles where media organizations and insiders focus on different parameters for what they think makes something good, and the LFA came out during a hype cycle that was focused on raw speed, as it was released around the time that "hypercars" were gaining steam as a concept.
Personally, having driven an LFA one time, I quite literally have regular dreams about the memory, and I wish that I owned one. It's on my bucket list.
It’s a mixture of enthusiasm and conspicuous consumption. Most enthusiasts love 90s japanese cars, but the average person sees an old mazda and recoils.
But put an old ferrari in front of anyone and they have a completely different reaction.
There's no million dollar Japanese supercars competing against Lamborghinis and McLarens, but I wouldn't say they stopped making sports cars.
The WRX has a turbocharged Boxer engine, manual gearbox or optional CVT, and all-wheel drive. It’s a sedan, but it does a 13.9 second quarter mile stock off the showroom floor. That’s not bad.
The FRS/BRZ/GR86 are identical cars mechanically, Toyota owns Scion, so the FRS was replaced by the GT86 and later GR86 within the Toyota line-up when Toyota killed off the Scion brand in the US, and the FRS never existed outside the North American market, because Scion was a North American exclusive brand.
The BRZ/GR86 has a Subaru Boxer engine, with Toyota D4S Port+Direct Injection, using a Toyota ECU/ECM, Toyota/Aisin transmission, Toyota TCU/TCM, and Toyota infotainment (in some generations), but with a mostly Subaru designed chassis and nearly entirely Subaru suspension and post-transmission driveline, but the wheels and tires off a Prius (in the first generation), and a handful of things that were only created to be jointly used by the BRZ/GR86. Except no matter which part you pick on the car, it'll be marked "Subaru", including ironically the Toyota badge on the front of the GT86.
It's better to think of them as what they are, which is different branding for the same vehicle, that was jointly developed and manufactured.
Well there was the NSX
The comment I was replying to said that people buy porsches because they’re beautiful.
That’s not it, because the NSX is beautiful, the LFA is beautiful, the FD is beautiful, but nobody wants to spend 200K on a Toyota.
Cars are a signifier, and the viewer needs to understand that sign. Luxury car makers bank on that. Put an LFA and a Cayman next to each other and 9/10 people would think the Cayman is worth more.
The original commenters idea works for content, because content is not a signifier of money. Rich people can’t have more expensive media taste than you, so the enthusiasts set the pace.
But they can have a more expensive car, so no matter how awful a car a lamborghini is, nobody envies the Integra type R next to it.
My girlfriend thinks my cheap modern shitbox is more expensive than my old 90's 4x4 truck.
The average person who doesn't know much about cars will think a second generation MR2 is more exotic than it is. Toyota probably wouldn't make their top three brand guesses. The R34 GT-R will thrill every car enthusiast (and probably everyone who had a Playstation around the turn of the millennium), but most people won't give it a second look.
GTRs absolutely do not stand out. They look like your your average sedan.
The Japanese economy continued to grow until the mid 1990s. I think the real culprit was low birth rate in the prior 20 years did not train the next generation of productive workers. China, South Korea most of Europe face similar issues
It’s comfortable, safe, and dead-nuts reliable, but no one gives a shit about or even notices my hybrid RX450h.
You're more of a car guy than me
OK so we're discussing niche vs mainstream, or "what most people want" vs "what a few want".
The few cars you listed are not popular in the ownership sense, but they are well-known and aspirational.
People can buy them to show off status / money / exclusivity, or perhaps beauty. Speed is table stakes, of course. They have to objectively be better than most cars but also special. They can be strikingly beautiful or strikingly hideous but they must not be ordinary.
If you watch / read reviews of those cars, then it tends to be from the enthusiast driver point of view. Is it good at racing, cornering, reading the driver's intentions and reacting instantly and accurately? But then more often than not, those that can afford them do not buy them to use them for that purpose (or at least not frequently.) Many are treated a bit like investments or merely items in a collection.
What a long-winded way to get back to the original point of faster horses and enshittification of software, eh?
Netflix and Spotify might as well be a Toyota Corolla or Prius. I lost my train of thought. I think I just wanted to pontificate about exotic cars for a while.
(I drive a Polestar 2. It looks like a Volvo, is heavy as a dump truck, but damn is it fast as hell.)
For street usage, I think those cars are popular because they’re beautiful more than because they’re fast (or because enthusiasts like them).
My utterly soulless Lexus will drive more than fast enough to get me in serious trouble. No one will look at it and feel stirred by its beauty, whereas the typical Ferrari or Porsche coupe will look at least appealing to most and beautiful to many, even those who can’t tell the three marques apart or even unaided recall the name Lamborghini.