Posted: Feb 08, 2006 8:18 PM
I was reading through the Roundel last night and ran across an article by Dave Farnsworth regarding the "cost of speed".
For those who haven't read it, the article compares a few select high end cars as to their weight, power and last of all their impact on the wallet. While I won't go into all of the details since the gist of it is pretty obvious, I can't help but think that we're not doing too badly on the lb/hp/$ front here.
For grins, let's say that someone comes up with a documented 450hp fiver in the near future. I think this to be a reasonable expectation if it hasn't already happened. At roughly 3200lb that comes to 7.1 lb/hp, putting it ahead of an M3 S3 (7.39), 911 twin turbo S50 (7.65) and the Vette C6 (8.7), and about equal to that of a Viper. The F430 has 6.52. The article goes into a bit more detail but you get the idea.
To a large degree this is apples and oranges. Those cars won't scare the crap out of you above 140, handle significantly better in many situations and are much more refined in many cases. I'm in no way saying that a turbo 5er could mop up with one of them but it sure puts our boxy old cars in the midst of some pretty serious high end hardware......at a mere fraction of their costs.
For those who haven't read it, the article compares a few select high end cars as to their weight, power and last of all their impact on the wallet. While I won't go into all of the details since the gist of it is pretty obvious, I can't help but think that we're not doing too badly on the lb/hp/$ front here.
For grins, let's say that someone comes up with a documented 450hp fiver in the near future. I think this to be a reasonable expectation if it hasn't already happened. At roughly 3200lb that comes to 7.1 lb/hp, putting it ahead of an M3 S3 (7.39), 911 twin turbo S50 (7.65) and the Vette C6 (8.7), and about equal to that of a Viper. The F430 has 6.52. The article goes into a bit more detail but you get the idea.
To a large degree this is apples and oranges. Those cars won't scare the crap out of you above 140, handle significantly better in many situations and are much more refined in many cases. I'm in no way saying that a turbo 5er could mop up with one of them but it sure puts our boxy old cars in the midst of some pretty serious high end hardware......at a mere fraction of their costs.
) at 600 crank hp (goal) =s 5.08 lbs/hp. What does that compare too?