Power crazy, but street legal
By: Drivers.com staff
Date: 2006-12-05
While the Hondas, Mazdas, Fords and others battle it out in the street-driving horsepower wars, one company wipes them off the automotive power map. In an incongruous world of soaring fuel costs, poverty, environmental concerns and automobile horsepower wars, the Saleen S7, super sportscar thumbs its nose at all muscle-car competitors.
For about $585,000 the S7 delivers a 750-horsepower road machine that can practically launch you into orbit at 250 miles per hour. The first 60 mph takes only 3 seconds if you get the upgrade 850 hp model!
The S7 is not a very practical car, says New York Times writer Lawrence Ulrich of his test drive experience. Apart from the 8 miles per gallon (less than 2 km per liter) in the city and 14 mpg highway fuel consumption, there are no air bags (it got an exemption from federal rules), no antilock brakes and no stability control.
It's also uncomfortable to get into or out of, and its low road clearance meant that the slightest bump or elevation was a problem. As well, Ulrich reported, over 120 mph the body was pressed down so much by aerodynamics that even a slight bump in the road surface would tend to press the body against the tires.
Paparazzi buzz
Probably none of this would matter to the prospective owners of the Saleen S7. Outside of the racing track, there would be very little they could do to enjoy the power features of the car, so the emphasis is on show.
Driving around New York, Ulrich wrote, "Amateur paparazzi buzzed the silver S7 with camera-phones flashing. The limelight was especially intense whenever I'd stop and swing open the wild scissor doors."
The S7 represents outrageous power that even power-loving autowriters recognize as looking silly on the street. However, on a more everyday playing field, the lust for power appears to pervade all levels of vehicles from Honda Civics to BMWs and to what Los Angeles Times auto writer Dan Neil described a few years ago as the "most potent production sedan on the planet" - the Mercedes Benz E55 AMG.
This "ordinary-looking, 2-ton luxury grocery getter," as Neil calls it, can "blitz a quarter mile in 12.4 seconds" and charge from 0 - 60 mph (100km/h) in just 4.2 seconds.
That may be something its ordinary grocery go-getter owner will never use but it's the kind of statistic that's in the mind of just about every car buyer, if we believe auto advertisers and auto writers.
Honda's oxymoron
Snappy handling ability and blow-away acceleration feature strongly in car reviews, even, surprisingly, in reviews of environment-saving models such as the Honda Accord hybrid.
Introduced a few years ago, Honda boasted about a V6-powered version that boosted horsepower from 160 in the base model to 255 in the 3.0 liter VTEC model. Even some auto writers balked at this automotive oxymoron.
Despite the rising crescendo of warnings about pollution, climate change and global warming, the manufacturers of cars, and the people who buy and drive those cars, seem obsessed with horsepower.
"The average horsepower of U.S.-sold vehicles over the last ten years illustrates this trend," writes auto journalist Carol Treager. "In 1994, the average horsepower of all passenger vehicles sold in the U.S. was 168 hp. In 2004 the average was 227 hp."
Furthermore, she wrote in a 2005 article for TheCarConnection.com, "The power surges go hand in hand with larger engines. According to Automotive Reports, U.S. buyers' demand for V-8 engines has risen every year since 1994."
When it comes to horsepower the average car buyer seems confused. One potential buyer recently overheard at an auto show complained that "it would be hard to get on the freeway" with the 2.5 Liter, 175 hp Nissan Altima. The salesman assured her that there was a 3.5 liter version available with 240 hp.
He might also have told her that adequate driving skills would get her into freeway traffic with a lot less horsepower. In reality, it's not so much the horsepower that makes the difference but how it's used.
It's the torque that counts
Most drivers relate to power in a simplistic way: more horsepower equals superior performance.
But more important, Dan Neil points out, is the 'torque curve' of the engine. In other words, the engines's twisting power or capability to turn the wheels. Measurement of that twisting power is often published as the "torque curve" of the engine. Some engines produce their maximum torque at high engines speeds, some at lower.
The shape of the torque curve determines your car's ability to accelerate away from a stop or to rapidly accelerate from 40 to 60 mph in an overtaking maneuver.
Auto engineer and journalist Gerry Malloy makes the point with a comparison:
"Take, for example, two cars with identical 180-hp ratings. One achieves that peak at 7600 rpm, with a torque peak at 6800; the other achieves its power peak at 5500 rpm, with a torque peak at 1950."
Most on-road driving is done in the 2000 - 4000 range, Malloy points out. The car that peaks its torque at 6800 might be fine for racing but more of a sluggard merging onto the freeway at slower speeds.
This, writes Dan Neil, is where the Mercedes E55 AMG excels. "The AMG's peak torque plateaus between 2,650 and 4,500 rpm. This accounts for the car's seemingly bottomless well of power. It just keeps pulling and pulling." And yet, Neil adds (in true auto-writer spirit), "at speeds well above 100 mph, the car still has enough dynamite to blow your license to kingdom come."
For those of us in the great mass of the driving public who can't afford an AMG Mercedes the choice of a set of wheels boils down to much more mundane features. We can look at the kind of driving we do and then pore over torque curves to choose the best machine for the job, or simply do what most of us do - take a test drive and sum up the feel.
It's a good idea to map out the driving situations that best characterize your typical car use (freeway ramps, merges, lane changes, stop-n-go, and so on) and then map out a good test run to feel out the machine. But we must never forget - in the everyday world of driving it's not horsepower that counts most. It's timing, judgement, communication skills, diplomacy.
And that's not expensive!
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