How far will the modern " horsepower wars" go??

T

tracy

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Oct 21, 2003
With relatively affordable performance cars capable 12 second 1/4 mile accelration or better and top speeds approaching 200 MPH. How much farther can the big three push the envelope?? Also, do you think it detracts from hot-rodding and the image of older cars like ours?

I am starting to see some social concern in various articles and have read some reference to insurance companies becoming concerend.

Someone told me that Dodge has stopped R&D on the Viper because they feel the performance level and 500 hp represent the ceiling of what they are comfortable with. Might be false, but it's interesting.
 
There are similar things happening in the motorcycle world, with the Yamaha R1 and Kawasaki ZX-10R making around 180 horsepower, with weights in the 365 lb range. :eek: Straight out of the box, these bikes are running high 9's. To me, this is where the real concern is, because you can have a bunch of motorcycling newbies learning to ride on much more affordable land missiles. You can have either of these bikes for around $11,000.
I showed my wife a ZX-10R and told her it has as much HP as her turbo Jetta, and what it weighed, and she just :eek:.
 
Originally posted by Welby
There are similar things happening in the motorcycle world, with the Yamaha R1 and Kawasaki ZX-10R making around 180 horsepower, with weights in the 365 lb range. :eek: Straight out of the box, these bikes are running high 9's. To me, this is where the real concern is, because you can have a bunch of motorcycling newbies learning to ride on much more affordable land missiles. You can have either of these bikes for around $11,000.
I showed my wife a ZX-10R and told her it has as much HP as her turbo Jetta, and what it weighed, and she just :eek:.
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You're absolutely right, I wondered about that also.
 
Look for a second renaissance of higher insurance premiums and tougher safety legislation to slowly put a lid on the fun again. Every year more bills on tort reform get trown out and it is only a matter of time before the insurance companies relize there are billions more of profits to be made by tacking on an excessive horsepower surcharge. And it wont take long for the ambulance chasers to figure out high performance cars plus low performance drivers equals big lawsuit settlements. And than you can throw in the expensive gas price conspericy theory too. I predict the internal combustion engine as we know it will be obsolete 20 years from now. There has been tremindous strides in fuel cell technology in the past couple of years and one of the strong engineering points is no wasted energy which means if you only need 50 HP to move a 4000 pound vehicle than that is all you are going to get. Factor in other polictical arguements like the enviroment and war for oil and I dont see any future for the high performance car. It's just as well, I'll probally be to old to drive fast and part of the fun in driving a car like a TR is all of the fantastic noise you can make with it. Anybody ever listen to one of them gay Honda hybrids going down the road?
 
But consider the advantages of electric cars man, they give insane instant torque. You get the right engineering guys, the motors can be wrigged to where it'll come off the line and put a GN to shame, if it can hook that is. Far as it goes, I've had people tell me I'm nuts but I'm a firm believer that there's a renisance of sorts in the big three, even though I Think GM's falling behind, but another topic another day. If you look at it, the big three all offer cars with well over 400 HP (or can be made such easily) and excellent styling to boot, not to mention it's being done while maintaning excellent street manners as well as doing it with emissions legality, which is to a large degree what killed off performance back in the day. I'm hoping what we're seeing is just the beginning, if so we've got a lot of exciting history being made right now. We're returning to an era of muscle cars. The only thing that would make it perfect is the return of more high powered turbo vehicles like the Supra, and the introduction of new legends like that twin turbo buick concept.
 
Originally posted by Drac0nic
But consider the advantages of electric cars man, they give insane instant torque.
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All you have to do is carry 2,000# of batteries thou.
Not to mention they're only REM vechicles and not the ZEM as many thought.

At the U of AZ (I beleive) the had a 2 car accident with battery powered cars. The cars used two different technologies. The Fire Dept, just let them burn figuring any water/ foam, or even hylon might generate a toxic cloud. Last I heard no one was willing to predict any *safe* fire suppression safe for human occupants trapped in an electric car accident. Mixing acids, and road construction elements (pretroleum) can generate alot of different reactions.
 
Yeah I have to agree with Bruce on this, I don't think the internal combustion engine is going to be obsolete any time soon. To much money is being made because of them. Look at all the money being made from the oil industry alone. If everyone went electric, all this would be gone. I feel that hybrids are still in an infancy stage. Just my 2 cents. :)
 
Picture us all arguing on the internet in 1890.

"Them new fangled "automobiles" are just nuts. Can you imagine carrying a flammable and explosive fuel around in a thin little metal tank? That's crazy! And the stupidest part of all, they use small explosions to make the thing run!"

I am sure many people argued similar things back when.

People talk about the "advent" of the automobile. I suspect the advent of the electric car is about 20 years from now and by that I mean 20% of cars will be electric by then. At that time we will all be talking about which one we want to buy. It will be accepted technology then while right now its still new.

Hybrids IMHO are a flash in the pan. They serve no purpose and are the worst of both worlds. Its a technological stop-gap to provide the range of a gasoline car. They only help drivers doing almost purely city driving. Prius owners are complaining they are not getting the mileage they were expecting. Get on the highway and you have an underpowered gas car with the engine running 100% and carrying a half ton battery. Full electrics will win out.

What's this got to do with the original thread question? All these high power cars and power and gas hungry SUVs could have their technology aimed at more sensible high mileage vehicles. In the US the public is against high fuel prices, As a result nobody needs to conserve. In Europe no one can afford these cars so they don't typically drive them. I think the electric car revolution will start there.
 
Accord V6 Hybrid

I've worked for Acura/Honda since '91, and I've driven everything from the Insight to the NSX. But they've finally combined a VTEC V6 and IMA, and are releasing it in Dec. 250+ hp, 300+ ft lb tq, and an estimated 37 mpg hwy. 3500 lbs, 15 sec 1/4 mi.: the numbers sound impressive. The down side: $30k pricetag, fwd, automatic only, 4 door only. What someone needs to do is use this technology to build a V6/electric/turbocharged 350+ hp coupe with a 6 spd manual/rwd that gets 35+ mpg.
 
Or a pickup truck that runs on diesel and will has more off idle torque then anything on the market, and gets 35 MPG.
 
back to the question, i think it will go on as long as people are willing to buy the cars.

really i dont' think this is any different than the muscle car era. look at the gto, ran about as good as alot of these new cars run they were cheap cars. i'm sure peopel back then were thinking they were getting too fast. then the gas crunch, and an end to muscle cars. my guess is something like that will happen again. it happend back in the 40's with ww2, 60's, with the gas crunch, i don't know what will put an end to it, but i'm guessing it wont have much to do with the cars themselves.
 
R&D has slowed on the next gen viper because the current Viper isn't selling well at all. Look up the sales numbers.

We all hope the horsepower wars continue, I just wish that cars were lighter. I drove the Dodge Magnum Hemi on an autocross course - what a heavy pig! Over 4,000 pounds and felt evey pound of it!
 
i think the horsepower wars will go until a lot of people start dying because they're idiots and the government starts regulating it harshly
 
Originally posted by fitz3820
R&D has slowed on the next gen viper because the current Viper isn't selling well at all. Look up the sales numbers.

We all hope the horsepower wars continue, I just wish that cars were lighter. I drove the Dodge Magnum Hemi on an autocross course - what a heavy pig! Over 4,000 pounds and felt evey pound of it!
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Yes it's heavy (Magnum) but I doubt they had autocrossing in mind when they desingned it. I thought we would have seen some alluminum production trickle down from the Prowler, but you are absolutely right about weight being a factor.

The Vette is lighter and the Viper as well than their previous generations. The ultra performace models seem to reap those benefits while more pedestrian models like the Magnum seem to focus on crah ratings, NVH characteristics which all mean more weight.

Knowing Merecedes(DC), the will continue with their design philosophy of over-building. Which is more good than bad. I think it's why the 300 is so vastly superior over the full-sizers from GM/Ford and rivals the imports.

I'm not sure what the sales numbers for the new Viper are compared to the older model, but it's a flagship car for DC. Really, the best performance value out there and I hope they continue to develop it. But at 500 hp they have expressed that there isn't much more they are interested in getting out of it. That's where Hennesey Motorsports comes in though.
 
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