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Well my current car has around 450 hp. Way over double anything I have ever owned but life's short and I always wanted to own a big V8 at least once. It's far more than I really need of course and it can be quite intimidating at times especially in the wet when it can spin its rear tyres quite easily. I don't go over the speed limit if I can avoid it but the sheer pick up from stop and the V8 roar is totally grin inducing - yes I am a bit juvenile. I absolutely love it! Makes driving feel like an occasion and experience rather than just a means of getting somewhere.
Safety has only a little to do with the car (if it's a modern car) but is more about how you drive them I reckon.
I would speed limit cars to whatever applys on that road, it would only bother nobheads.
Three pages of confirmation, well done gents, vroom, vroom.
If you are doing 70 overtaking a lorry over taking another lorry there is nothing in that to say you should jump out of the way
Unless you failed to observe the faster car already in that lane about to overtake you as you pulled out to overtake the second lorry. From a driving test perspective, I distinctly remember that doing anything avoidable that would force another car to change direction or speed was on shaky ground, unless you're slowing down to turn off a road.
Zokes: When did anyone suggest pulling out to force someone to slow down? The situation people seemed to be discussing was car A already out in the overtaking lane, actually overtaking slower vehicles, when car B catches up and driver B expects driver A to slow down and pull into a gap in the slower traffic so driver B can go past.
ghostlymachineFunny thing is, most of these modern BHP figures are all but unachieveable, even if you drive like a nutter.
Off the top of my head the engine will have its torque capped (and therefore not give the advertised power) if you have any, some or all of the following......
Few cars will have all of the safety / management features you listed and any that do will allow some or all of them to be turned off. Even with those electronic governors modern cars still benefit from small low inertia turbos, traction control,wider tyres, better suspension, brakes etc.
So you've paid for an extra 150 bhp and even when you are asking for it, you'll probably only see half of it........ pretty much the only time the engine will see the headline figure is on a test bed or dyno. Or on a dead straight german motorway with the planets aligned to within a couple of mm.
If you've paid for 150bhp extra, it's still 150bhp more than the car with 150bhp less. The lesser car also has to overcome parasitic drivetrain loss and electronic safety aids. Manufacturers always quote BHP/KW at the crank. This isn't news.
Anything less than ~5 years old will have most of them, or other controls that have the same net effect, almost all you can't switch off, they are embedded into the ECU and stop the engine from destroying itself, or blowing the guts of the emissions system all over the road. Of the ones i've listed, Traction control is the one you *might* be able to switch off, or at least reduce the effect of significantly.Few cars will have all of the safety / management features you listed and any that do will allow some or all of them to be turned off.
Well no, it's not. The car with 150 bhp less will have a relatively lower stressed engine/gearbox, with far more margin. Will also have far wider limits on the various restrictions. Like fuel quality, ambient air, coolant temp, injector condition and so on. So when you ask for the torque, you'll get most of it. Or at least, a far larger percentage of it. So you've paid for 150 extra, in reality, most of the time, you'll get an extra 75. Ish.If you've paid for 150bhp extra, it's still 150bhp more than the car with 150bhp less.
And this really really isn't what i'm talking about.The lesser car also has to overcome parasitic drivetrain loss and electronic safety aids. Manufacturers always quote BHP/KW at the crank. This isn't news.
I know what you mean, but isn't that a £40k car ? ....not very ordinary surely.. ?
There's lots about though and pretty attainable due to good PCP / lease deals. When you can drop £30k on a poshish Golf / Octaivia they almost look good value!
When did anyone suggest pulling out to force someone to slow down? The situation people seemed to be discussing was car A already out in the overtaking lane, actually overtaking slower vehicles, when car B catches up and driver B expects driver A to slow down and pull into a gap in the slower traffic so driver B can go past.
Your job involves creating primary school exam questions, right...
😉
Hurt my head reading that.
Not convinced that all this power just balances out the extra weight. Nor do you need to have ridiculously deep pockets to afford a super saloon.
The new focus RS is 31k and goes 0-60 in 4.7 seconds. Thats supercar performance from not so long ago..in a ford
There are times where standing on the loud pedal is an option to avoid a collision.
That may be theoretically true but in 30y of driving and not a single crash it's not something I've ever encountered personally
Either you've been very lucky or do twelve miles a year. I've had five in as many years. In three cases I was stationary and someone's either ploughed into the back of me (twice - one emergency stop, I had left sufficient braking distance and the guy behind me hadn't; and one where I was waiting to turn onto a roundabout, had been stationary for several seconds and someone rear-ended me, probably sending a text or something), or oncoming (hump-backed bridge, boy racer came over it like his head was on fire, ricocheted off the wall and into the side of me). The other two I wasn't even in the car, first was some dappy bint who side-swiped me in ASDA car park swinging out of a space (and tried to drive off, unfortunately for her I was ten yards away and put a stop to that); and the other parked outside my house, some dingbat pulled out from the other side of the road without looking and the car "making progress" down the lane took the side of my car off. Next time it goes to the garage I'm going to ask them to have it demagnetised.
But anyway. I'll give you an example. Few years back, going straight through a lights-controlled crossroads. Guy coming from the left jumped the red light at speed. If I'd done nothing he'd have hit my rear quarter, if I'd stopped he'd have t-boned me. Couldn't swerve due to oncoming traffic, so I booted it and he missed me.
Not at 70mph I grant you, and far from a common occurrence. Point is though, an extra burst of speed gives you one more option to get out of trouble, and with the number of nobbers on the road you sometimes need all the options you can get.
ghostlymachine
Well no, it's not. The car with 150 bhp less will have a relatively lower stressed engine/gearbox, with far more margin. Will also have far wider limits on the various restrictions. Like fuel quality, ambient air, coolant temp, injector condition and so on. So when you ask for the torque, you'll get most of it. Or at least, a far larger percentage of it. So you've paid for 150 extra, in reality, most of the time, you'll get an extra 75. Ish.
Feel free to give examples here.
There are plenty on here already.
Point is though, an extra burst of speed gives you one more option to get out of trouble, and with the number of nobbers on the road you sometimes need all the options you can get.
Unfortunately, it's also the nobbers who get to play with cars that have the extra burst of speed. So people like you need even more speed to avoid your red-light-jumping "friend", but then that would be available to everyone too...
...seems like a bit of a viscous circle to me.
Thick and cloying? Sounds about right.
Miaow! 🙂
ghostlymachineThere are plenty on here already.
No I mean an example of cars, same make and model with the 150bhp discrepancy you described which illustrate this 75bhp loss .
When did anyone suggest pulling out to force someone to slow down?
Middle lane driver, much?
The default position on any road in the UK is the left-hand most lane. If there is a safe space to do so, you should always pull back into it. Assuming the driver didn't "pull out" to the outside lane, then they must already have been there.
Roads work much better without people deliberately impeding the flow of traffic, regardless of whether they think they are in the right or not.
Roads work much better without people deliberately impeding the flow of traffic, regardless of whether they think they are in the right or not.
with any volume of traffic, motorways actually work much better when you impose speed averaging cameras as they cut out the 70-zero-70-zero stop start driving that you get when you get people trying to push through slower traffic.
Not with any volume of traffic, surely? Yes when traffic is moderate to heavy slowing everybody can make a big difference for the better. When traffic is very light middle lane hogs cause a quite noticeable slowing and subsequent increase in traffic locally. I wonder if these people think motorways are always busy as there is always traffic around them 🙂with any volume of traffic, motorways actually work much better when you impose speed averaging cameras as they cut out the 70-zero-70-zero stop start driving that you get when you get people trying to push through slower traffic.
wilburt - MemberI would speed limit cars to whatever applies on that road, it would only bother nobheads.
Three pages of confirmation, well done gents, vroom, vroom.
The problem with limiting vehicles is that it then encourages the driver to drive at that limit. 💡
The proof is quite observable in the limited vehicles we already have on the roads.
When traffic is very light middle lane hogs cause a quite noticeable slowing and subsequent increase in traffic locally. I wonder if these people think motorways are always busy as there is always traffic around them
I've lost count of the number of times I've been dribbling along at 55mph on the motorway, only to finally pop out of the logjam like a champagne cork onto a near empty road all because some assclown is stuck out in the middle lane because there's a HGV somewhere on the horizon.
I'm sure there's a subset of people who either think the middle lane is the "cruising" lane (whateverTF that means) or are so blindly terrified of changing lanes that they'll change lanes precisely twice, on entering and leaving the motorway. I saw one just this weekend, pull off the slip at maybe 60-70 into the first lane behind another vehicle, then straight out into lane two about a foot in front of a car who was about to overtake the car in lame 1, all in one swift movement. I doubt he even looked. Plank.
The problem with limiting vehicles is that it then encourages the driver to drive at that limit.
The proof is quite observable in the limited vehicles we already have on the roads.
Which is of course why you often see two lorries drag racing each other, one doing 56mph and the other 55.9 recurring, for miles and miles and miles at a time. Just as one gets slightly ahead, the road pitch will change up or down and now the slower one is slightly faster than the other, losing the six inches gained at some point in a previous time zone. Meanwhile, the rest of the motorway is wholly contained in the third lane from Birmingham back to Kendal. I'm sure they do it on purpose just to wind people up.
All of them? There's only so much you can do with the laws of physics.No I mean an example of cars, same make and model with the 150bhp discrepancy you described which illustrate this 75bhp loss.
Unless you want to treat your gearbox and engine as service items. (And get shafted by the emissions people a la VW)
Even completely bespoke hypercars won't produce full power when conditions are so-so.
Post Office vans limited to 50mph seem to have no problem doing 65mph.
I'll bite, but not in the usual way. I drive a 400hp+ 4x4 estate car as a daily drive and as you all probably know from previous threads, I do like to make use of that performance where safe and responsible to do so.
So why do I drive a 400hp car - because I need it? Not really, an estate with 1/2 the power would be fine for making progress. It's because I enjoy driving something different, something who's capabilities are way above average, and I appreciate the engineering that's gone into the car to make it what it is. I also enjoy the immense feeling of acceleration and effortless torque that the car can generate, but only where safe to do so.
However despite this I would agree that the ‘arms race’ for horsepower has gone a bit crazy lately. 25 years ago, a hot hatchback with 130hp (e.g. 205 1.9Gti) was considered fast but these days 130hp wouldn't even be considered mildly warm. 200-300hp is now where it's at.
Yet driving a powerful car can sometimes be frustrating. Other motorists often don't realise how capable such a car is, and I've been flashed by plenty of 'self righteous' sorts when performing perfectly safe and courteous overtakes. Lots more traffic these days means that rather than making progress you're often forced into the routine of mindlessly trudging along at well below the speed limit with half the drivers doing the same seemingly more interested in their phones rather than the road ahead.
So the options to use a fast car to it’s potential on the road today are getting fewer and fewer, just as the horsepower ‘arms race’ really gets going. Cars with high horespower are supposed to be fun, but apart from occasional squirts on full power now most modern performance cars are far too capable to be truly fun. Brakes have got better, tyres better, suspension and handling have improved, driver aids (ESP etc) have made increased power much more usable but all this means is that these cars often feel dead at more mundane speeds. Modern performance cars are often far too big and heavy to thread down a B road with the same sort of gusto that the aforementioned 205 could muster.
I feel that the way forward now for the manufacturers should be to focus on making their cars lighter and more fun to drive at any speed rather than faster. The Toyota GT86 was a step in the right direction but it would be nice to see more manufacturers approaching things in the same direction. Less power and less weight would certainly be my choice when I come to replace my current car.
this thread seems to have been, as usual, sidetracked
As the OP, i'm firmly in the 'a bit more power at times is better' camp. What i don't undertand is why you will ever need more than say 300 bhp on a road car.
the ‘arms race’ for horsepower has gone a bit crazy lately. 25 years ago, a hot hatchback with 130hp (e.g. 205 1.9Gti) was considered fast but these days 130hp wouldn't even be considered mildly warm. 200-300hp is now where it's at.
With startlingly small engines too. I was looking at a Focus the other day, they do a 1.0L "ecoboost" engine which puts out 125PS. How is that even possible? My first car had a 1.1L engine and it's power output was less than half of that (53BHP IIRC). Engine tech has come a very long way in 40 years.
If we are dragging it back on topic I agree with tpbiker, and others. High powered cars do seem a bit unnecessary and it actually makes them a bit dull to drive. A few years back a housemate had an Impreza WRX or something like that. It was a company car and he was happy for us all to have a go. Trouble was at 60 you could easily go round pretty much any bend, in fact you'd usually be round it long before your brain even thought about it. You couldn't get anywhere near the limit. At that time I had a corolla GT coupe (GT86's spiritual predecessor); Lightweight, rear wheel drive, revvy engine, LSD. It was great fun to drive and you could have fun while still below the speed limit.
What i don't undertand is why you will ever need more than say 300 bhp on a road car.
"Need" is kinda subjective, though. You could argue why anyone would "need" more than 150 from a road car. That's considerably more than the "sporty" Cavalier SRi I used to own, and that was plenty quick enough.
And then again, there's some on here who'd have us all driving behind a little man with a red flag again given half a chance I think. The bottom line is, the "right" speed and power is whatever you choose, everyone faster is a dangerous lunatic and everyone slower is a bimbling buffoon.
If we are dragging it back on topic I agree with tpbiker, and others. High powered cars do seem a bit unnecessary and it actually makes them a bit dull to drive. A few years back a housemate had an Impreza WRX or something like that. It was a company car and he was happy for us all to have a go. Trouble was at 60 you could easily go round pretty much any bend, in fact you'd usually be round it long before your brain even thought about it. You couldn't get anywhere near the limit. At that time I had a corolla GT coupe (GT86's spiritual predecessor); Lightweight, rear wheel drive, revvy engine, LSD. It was great fun to drive and you could have fun while still below the speed limit.
That was the James Hunt thing, wasn't it? His favourite car being a Morris 1000 on skinny tyres 'coz he could take it to the limit all the time.
As mentioned above, I'd rather have the power to get out of a situation, but not so much that the power would put me into another. I often see super cars pootling down the motorway and ask myself why. Why spend the money that the Police will just be daring you to speed in?
I occasionally see a supercar being hooned around town. It's embarrassing because no knickers fall down. The girls are not impressed.
I think back to my mental MkII Escort which would be decidedly pedestrian these days and how things have indeed changed.
The BMW 330 mentioned above is a bloody quick car and as much as you'd need on a road. It's a cracking drive too.
The supercars are just demonstrations of wealth rather than tools to be driven. Just marketing for the manufacturers.
Wasn't it James May who drove the Countach dream of his childhood and concluded that it was a pile of crap for driving.
The power without the ability of getting it on the tarmac is worth nothing.
That Focus RS looks a whole bag of fun though.
I feel that the way forward now for the manufacturers should be to focus on making their cars lighter and more fun to drive at any speed rather than faster.
Lotus and Caterhams all round then!
Actually, thinking about the amount of stuff most folk seem to carry in their cars this may not be such a bad idea. The problem is, people want cars to do everything, carry the family at the weekend, fit in bikes for the holiday to the Alps, be fun to drive on a Sunday mornimg and be the daily commuter. Not sure this is possible in a lightweight, lower power package.
Ahhh well driverless cars will do away with all this asshattery.
There will always be plebs on the road who assume they're driving gods. Usually in an Audi estate with a blue and pink santa cruz bolted to the top 😆
Is "driverless cars" the new "it's a limit not a target" on these threads?
Small point here - I [i]enjoy[/i] driving. So you can stick your driverless cars up your Google.
I don't know what's wrong with some people. In this fabled fantasy utopia we'll all have driverless cars, robotic factories, riderless bicycles, computerised factories, we'll all be sat at home unemployed and bored shitless, and yes someone will still be bleating on that their kids spend too much time on their bloody iPads.
As many have alluded to above, the power is necessary because the weight of cars is increasing. For the driving I mostly do (quiet B roads) I'd rather a small, light, fun car that doesn't need to trouble speed limits to put a smile on my face, than a huge monster of a car with lots of horses that only comes alive on a track.
Wasn't it James May who drove the Countach dream of his childhood and concluded that it was a pile of crap for driving.
I saw one of these in the parade lap at Car Fest a couple of years ago. It was the ONLY car to spin on track, at quite mundane speeds.
^ 😆 Well said Cougar
I occasionally see a supercar being hooned around town. It's embarrassing because no knickers fall down. The girls are not impressed.
Maybe the guy driving it is having fun though.
Wasn't it James May who drove the Countach dream of his childhood and concluded that it was a pile of crap for driving.
James May is full of shit and he was doing a *bit* for an unfunny comedy programme also featuring cars. Just standing behind a Countach at idle, the sounds as smells awesome.
Wasn't it James May who drove the Countach dream of his childhood and concluded that it was a pile of crap for driving.Yup, but they were sooooo cool. I remember following one way back as a kid ad it was massive. In purple too.
Yup, but they were sooooo cool. I remember following one way back as a kid ad [b]it was massive. In purple too.[/b]
😯
If there is a safe space to do so, you should always pull back into it.
Not always.
If there's faster traffic behind you that can't pull out into another lane, then yes.
Zigzagging in and out of lanes at 80mph trying to occupy the left lane at all times unless overtaking is bananas. You'd probably drive 10% further overall. And yes I do see people doing this.
Power hasn't necessarily developed the bhp arms race itself.
Cars are very well insulated and quiet these days, mechanical grip is better etc. So you actually need more power for it to feel like your having fun !
I used to have a Suzuki Cappuccino. It was limited to 86mph and 0-60 in about 8 seconds.
However it was the fastest thing I've ever driven (other than Caterham/Elise) because there wasn't so much cosseting, you could feel everything, so 70mph felt really fast!
70mph is still really fast, but cars are built in such a way now that it feels slow....until you crash
I watched a video about the new M2 v 240i. The guy doing the test was convinced the M2 was the quicker car in a straight line. When they put them head to head they were identical. They couldn't believe it. Basically the M2 you pay £10k more for BMW to take out some sound deadening, and engineer in some noise. OK there are changes to handling etc, but the fact is it feels quicker, without being quicker
[i]Cougar - Moderator
Next time it goes to the garage I'm going to ask them to have it demagnetised.[/i]
What's your middle name, Lucky?
[i]Cougar - Moderator
Is "driverless cars" the new "it's a limit not a target" on these threads?
Small point here - I enjoy driving. So you can stick your driverless cars up your Google.
I don't know what's wrong with some people. In this fabled fantasy utopia we'll all have driverless cars, robotic factories, riderless bicycles, computerised factories, we'll all be sat at home unemployed and bored shitless, and yes someone will still be bleating on that their kids spend too much time on their bloody iPads. [/i]
Now that's a post I whole heartedly agree with!
As far as I'm concerned they can poke those driverless cars, where the sun doesn't shine, and no, I'm not referring to Grimsby.
😉
I enjoy driving. So you can stick your driverless cars up your Google.
I enjoy a relaxed zip across quiet mountain roads. But I don't enjoy trundling along the M4 in rush hour.
Bring on driverless cars.
[I]molgrips - Member
I enjoy a relaxed zip across quiet mountain roads.[/I]
Are you still stuck behind that tractor?...
[I] But I don't enjoy trundling along the M4 in rush hour.
Bring on driverless cars.[/I]
What you appear to be describing is a desire to have a car which comes with a rush hour, driverless, mode?
You won't get a choice with driverless cars.
Government is faced with congestion in economically vital parts of the country at damaging levels and projected to get worse. Congestion is bad for business and people.
To fix this you either spend 100s of billions on new road infrastructure, which is unacceptable financially and politically.
Or you find a way to get fewer cars to transport more people faster to where they need to go. It fits perfectly with the conservatives market driven ethos and pushes the cost(and benefits) to corporations and individuals.
tomdYou won't get a choice with driverless cars.
Driverless cars are already here. With such features as choice.