A racing automobile, especially one designed for speed competitions; a high-performance car used in motorsports.
From auto- (automobile) + bolide (a fast-moving object or meteor, from Greek bolis meaning missile). The term combines the car prefix with bolide to suggest a vehicle moving with meteor-like speed.
Calling a race car an 'autobolide' sounds like it's moving as fast as a meteor—and early racing enthusiasts loved this kind of dramatic language because these vehicles really did feel impossibly fast compared to the horse carriages most people had known.
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