At some point, we’ve all wished our cars had a little more oomph. Maybe you want a bit more speed in the straights, slightly better handling in the corners or even some improved off-roading prowess.
So, with all these humble improvements in mind, we turned to you. Yesterday, we asked what cars you felt were in need of a bit of a performance boost. Here are some of you top responses.
“Challenger Hellcat. 807hp is just not enough in this day and age, you just can’t safely merge onto a freeway with it!
“Serious answer:
“Subaru’s 2.5 engine, it has been stuck around the same horsepower forever. It could really use a boost to at least over 200hp.”
I was fully expecting someone to seriously suggest the Hellcat. But thankfully, this Subaru suggestion is much more appropriate. Subaru’s 2.5-Liter, FB25 motor is found in the Legacy, Outback, Forester, and Crosstrek. It delivers just 182 horsepower.
Suggested by: 89islander
“Sorry not sorry, but it’s absolutely hilarious a brand that’s so ‘dedicated’ to off-roading, refused to ever try and make a rally car.
“While I never expected the original Compass/Patriot, or the Renegade, to ever become rally cars, I honestly think that to claim the brand image of Jeep is to be so ‘focused’ into off-roading, then they should make a rally car.
“They already build rock crawlers, and even a very 32nd assed (a very distant cousin of half-assed lmao) desert runner. What would be wrong with trying it with the Compass? The Renegade is too awkward, and the Cherokee is too big.
“A Compass with the 2.0T wouldn’t even be that hard to pull off: it IS just a slightly smaller Cherokee.”
The Jeep Compass might have an unexpectedly nice cabin in 2022, but that still doesn’t help it live up to this poster’s expectation. But what do you think of the idea of a Jeep rally car, and is a 3,000 pound SUV the perfect candidate to build one from?
Suggested by: turnworld
“The answer, as always, is Miata. I’m not saying they need to make a 400hp tire shredder but even Mazda’s turbo Mazda 3 is quicker to 60 than its sports car stablemate.
“I get that the Miata isn’t about straight line speed, but it’s also not about being downright slow. And I’m sorry if this feels like sacrilege but in 2022, a car that does 0-60 in 6 seconds is slow.
“Even giving the Miata an optional 230hp engine to target the new Toyobaru GR86/BRZ would be amazing.”
The top of the line Miata packs 181 hp into a car that weighs just 2,341 pounds. So, it isn’t crying out for a massive upgrade, but a smidge more power would make this, and a lot of other, posters very happy.
Suggested by: whalezbro
“Miata is not the answer to anything.
“The simple fact of the matter is that Mazda 2 DJ is a better and funner car to drive than the ND Miata. I realize that I am in the minority by saying this but that just means that everyone else is wrong. You can be right, or you can be happy (and stupid).
“If you took the Mazda 2 sedan and turned that into a coupé by re-sculpting the roof line (and then turning it into a lift back), then you’d already have a wee little ripper that’d be more fun than ice cream on a bouncy castle. If you then put the Renesis 13B into that coupé, then you’d have a bonkers-crazy-mental-braaap machine that could torque steer its way into a hedge.
“GIVE ME NEW THINGS TO FEEL.”
Given the choice, would you rather drive a hot Mazda 2 or an even hotter Mazda Miata? We need to get these two commenters in a room together to hear both sides.
Suggested by: rollo75
“The Talbot-Matra Rancho. Performance doesn’t always mean power, acceleration and handling. In this case, the Rancho desperately needed some off-road performance to back up its macho looks. Launched in the late 70s, the Rancho was built on the Renault 1100 supermini-sedan chassis and only offered FWD and 80 horsepower.
“Yes, it was built purely for aesthetics and offered ZERO off-roading performance (and almost none on road, too), despite looking like the venerable Land Rover Discovery and Land Cruiser FJ70.
“In fact, the Rancho predates both the Land Cruiser FJ70 and Land Rover Discovery by about a decade and the G-Wagen by several years! Perhaps these icons were inspired by the Rancho?”
Built between 1977 and 1984, the Talbot-Matra Rancho was France’s answer to the original Range Rover. But, it was pretty underpowered, thanks to a 1.4-liter engine, and only had front-wheel drive.
Suggested by: caddyak
“GR RAV4 Hybrid. Drop it two inches. Slim the tire profile a hair. Give it the love it needs to get closer to a 7 second 0-60mph. Getting the drop makes 8.1s 0-60 really fun to flex, but a 7s would really blow ‘em away.
“But, I guess the PHEV RAV4 made 5.8s 0-60, so give me that all day looooong. So many people would stammer.”
GR-ify all of the things, please. A lot of SUVs would be better if they were dropped, given a bit more power and made a bit more fun to drive. Heck, most SUVs would be better if they were hot hatches.
Suggested by: dingobebbeh
“Curb weight aside, I always believed any car weighing above 3,000lbs should have more than 200hp.
“I love driving/racing my Transit Connect, but 164hp is just not enough when Ford is making engines easily pushing over 200hp. It surprisingly holds it own in corners, but gets eaten alive by anything end everything on straights. A Focus ST powertrain in a minivan?! HELL YEAH”
Now we’re talking! Ford has a history of making ludicrously powerful sport vans that goes all the way back to the Supervan of the 1970s. Now, we’re not saying this would be a practical addition to the lineup, but a bit more bang for your buck in the back of a Transit would be no bad thing.
Suggested by: i86hotdogs
“Civic Si. It’s been at basically the same power level for over a decade. A 2006 Civic Si makes 197hp.
“A 2022 Civic Si makes 200hp. I get that the fuel economy is better and it has a better torque curve but to be honest that’s not why people buy an Si.”
If you’re buying a car specifically because it has more power, but it doesn’t really have more power, then why are you buying it at all? In truth, though, the Si does pack in almost 50 more horses worth of power than the standard Civic, but that clearly isn’t enough for this commenter.
Suggested by: klone121
“Burn it all down option – the Chevrolet Blazer. I’m not offended by the current Blazer’s existence, but it’s such a nothing of a car – at least dropping in the 3.6 turbo would give it a little verve.”
More power equals more personality. That’s a belief we can all agree on, right?
Suggested by: maymar
“A warmed-up version of the Kia Soul. That’d be awesome. Not even full-on hot hatch, just a warm one.
“Think something like a Fiat Panda 100HP. Enough HP to feel brisk, manual, and some handling tweaks to make it fun (not enough to turn it into a track weapon).”
Another cutesy hatchback in need of a bit more pizzaz. The base model’s 2-liter motor churns out 147 hp, but a little more wouldn’t hurt anyone!
Suggested by: moekhan
“Oscar Mayer Weinermobile.
“Seriously, I was stuck behind this thing a few years ago, its acceleration was leisurely at best.
“I think I read the Weinermobile is 14,500 lbs and had a Chevy V-8 that puts out about 185 hp.”
While not many of us have had the misfortune of being stranded behind a Weinermobile for hours on end, we should maybe take steps to make sure it never happens to anyone else.
Suggested by: earthbound-misfit-i
“Mitsubishi Mirage. It’s 2022 and it still has the same 77hp 3 cyl engine that it had back in 2012.
“Not that the 3A9 engine was all that new in 2012 as it was just a 4A9 4cyl (introduced in 2004) with one less cylinder.
“And this low level of power means a 0-60 time of around 12 seconds.
“Sure, the Mirage is just a cheap/basic car. But I don’t think it would cost them much to improve the performance at least a little.”
Another small city car that needs the hot hatch treatment. Clearly, this is what the people want. And by the people, I mean me. I want all the cars to be hot hatches, please.
Suggested by: manwich
“Minivans.
“No, we don’t need a behemoth 700hp Hellcat Pacifica.
“Give us a nice smaller minivan with a 280-300hp turbo 4/manual combo, make it weigh less than 3,800lb. Something akin to the Turbo minivans of the late 80s would be perfect.”
Performance and practicality, something we all dream of.
Suggested by: yourenotavalidusername
“Smart car!
“It has... 89hp as is? Give it 120hp, or maybe 100hp and a more exciting powerband and better transmission tuning.”
A Smart with 125 hp and and 148 lb-ft of torque from a three-cylinder engine, why does that sound familiar?
Suggested by: practicalbatman
“Outside of the joke of ‘all of them!’ my serious answer is
“ALMOST NONE OF THEM
“Since I was a kid, cars have gotten 10x safer. But fatality rates haven’t improved by nearly as much. I think it is because the average driver is still sucks. They lack the car and impulse control to handle a powerful car, while the safer cars of today have become too powerful for the average moron behind the wheel.
“So, here’s my opinion:
“Normal vehicles: 15-17 second quarter miles. Proper power level.
“Sporty Vehicles: 14-16 second quarter miles. Proper power level.
“Very few vehicles break out of the top end of these ranges. But a hell of a lot of vehicles break out the bottom end.”
I mean, they’ve got a point here. How many of us really use the performance that can be extracted from our cars on a regular basis? Really, we should all just get better at driving.
Suggested by: yeardley68