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The unique color of this Koenigsegg CCR reminds us of the Orange Dream ice cream bars of our youth. Chances are this 806 horsepower beast would hold our attention longer than any novelty ice cream ever could. (Photo Credit: RUD66) More »
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When Spiro Pappas plants his foot in this, the sickest Camaro ever, the car doesn't run a 6-second quarter mile, but rather pulls a Chuck Norris and may actually spin the Earth backwards. More »
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The term "horsepower" was coined by James Watt almost purely as a marketing scheme for his steam engine. Horsepower is actually based on another standard, but foot-pounds-per-minute doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. It's now the benchmark for power, though it isn't always indicative of a car's performance. Weight, torque and other factors play just as big a role. Nevertheless, a car's horsepower is still one of the first facts we want to know; it's something touted by every carmaker and, inevitably, is considered a measure of value. But is that right? To show how truly abstract the concept of horsepower is, we asked you to find the best bang for your buck in terms of dollars-per-horsepower. The strange and illuminating results below, along with a larger-than-life chart. More »
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When we announced that you could get the 2009 Corvette ZR1 for just $103,300, Ben started to look for a way to scrounge together the $103,200 he'd need to buy one. Still, we're talking about $161 per horsepower. That's not shabby, but Godzilla is only $148 per horsepower. And what about the Tata Nano? Just $75 per horsepower. More »
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]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=341058&view=rss&microfeed=true Jerry Garrett of the New York Times parrots the "Hyundai is a luxury brand" line and then swallows it, the hook and the sinker in a little horsepower envious piece. [NYT Wheels Blog] More »
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The results are in for automakers using Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) standards for rating their cars' horsepower. And this is no good news for those of you who bought that Toyota Camry with the expectation of a hotter-than-hot-sake 210 hp. In reality, you may be feeling a bit like you just swallowed some raw shrimp, cause that hp just dropped down to a piddly 190. More »
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Whoops. If you bought a 2006 Acura RSX, expect to get five fewer horsepower than the 2005 model. Buy an '06 Corvette LS7, however, and you'll gain an equal number over 2005. What happened? It seems Japanese automakers' overselling of their cars' horsepower was outed by their moving to the new, third-party horsepower standards set by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) in their marketing. The SAE recently changed its testing procedures to make the numbers more relevant to real-world use, not in ideal conditions. According to the Detroit News, Toyota and Honda are retesting their entire vehicle lineups, while other automakers are retesting only cars and trucks with updated powertrains. Will the nearly assured backlash among enthusiasts provide an image boost to struggling US carmakers? Or will no one really care? Seriously, we're asking — tips@jalopnik.com. More »
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It's not often when the closing of loopholes reveals good news for a company. In Cadillac's case, it resulted in a horsepower bump for its 4.4-liter supercharged Northstar V8. GM announced back in April it was the first automaker to follow the SAE's new voluntary, third-party power and torque testing and certification procedure, which was designed to eliminate automakers' use of "best-case" scenarios when rating horsepower, making the results more likely to be repeatable in the smoggy, humid environs of the real world. For the Chevrolet Corvette Z06, the first GM car to be tested using the new procedure, the result were a rating of 505hp from its 7.0-liter powerplant. In the case of the Cadillac STS-V, the SAE results topped GM's estimated figure of 440hp, with ratings of 469hp at 6,400 rpm and 439ft/lbs of torque at 3,900 rpm. More »
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At the risk of sounding like Brock Yates (Hi Brock!), this New York Times article steamed us somewhat. When the Honda Accord Hybrid hit the streets, we were elated finally somebody had come up with a real-world application for hybrids that married performance and economy. Think of the hybrid Accord this way it has the fuel economy of a large-ish four and makes more grunt than some recent 8s, using the hybrid system as a power-adder. Now the Times, flagship paper of a city of people whose knowledge of cars often doesn't go beyond the back seat of Crown Victorias or Town Cars, starts hemming and hawing over the fact that some people out there would actually want hybrid performance cars. In essence, they're comparing kumquats to watermelons. Where they should be comparing the Accord Hybrid to vehicles like the Dodge Charger and Pontiac Grand Prix, they're instead trying to force it into an Insight metric, which, to quote the mighty H sker D , makes no sense at all. More »
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