Racing for Pinks - Prius vs some muscle cars

HAHAHAHAHHAHA

I'm sorry, but this is just funny. Compare cars that were smacked with emission controls and carbs, and negate that the prius not only relys on a flat torque band, it weighs considerably less.

A 2002 Hummer H2 is faster in the 60 and a tenth slower in the 1320

1967 Chevrolet Camaro SS-350 8.0 (60) 15.4 (1/4) - There's a muscle car

"C" 0-60 and 1/4 mile times for Factory Stock Vehicles

 

Holodeck Image

 

Yeeeeeaaaah :rockon:

and also don't forget that the "tiny" 92ci (1.5L) Prius engine OUTPERFORM many 122ci (2.0L) modern cars engines in mid-speed range acceleration link

 

Not very fair comparison. A prius-type auto built in those years would have been timed with an hour-glass. Would you like to race my CTSV(3.9 to 60)? Or how about my Tahoe hybrid? Pink for pink?

 

Sure, but since you made the challenge I get to define the race. We will start out by using a fixed quantity of gasoline for the distance... :cheer2: And the parallel parking portion of the competition should be fun.

 

This comparison shows how badly Detroit cars performed in the mid to late 70s (and even much of the 80s) as band-aid emissions controls were being implemented. For example, ignition timing was retarded to reduce NOx emissions, but this had a big adverse impact on power and mpg. Belt-driven air pumps injected outside air into the exhaust manifold in an effort to promote further combustion of exhaust gases. Catalytic converters were first implemented in 1975.

If you had to drive a regular car of that vintage, think how much slower it would be.

Now compare to the current Camry V6 (which is not positioned as a high-performance muscle car) with 0 to 60 mph reached in ~7 seconds.
The 2007 Toyota Camry car test drive

 

My 1972 Jeep C-J5 would do 0-60 in 11 seconds. On the other hand, it did have a V8 crammed into its tiny frame and only got about 15 mpg on a good day.

I think the OP's point is more about expectations than actual figures. What his figures show is that the performance of the current Prius would have been considered very good at one time. For some reason we as consumers have allowed ourselves to be convinced that we need 400 hp in a family car. To what end I can't imagine.

Tom

 

True. The modern family sedan has a better power to weight ratio than exclusive sports cars from just 20 years ago.

• 1990 Porsche 911 ---------- 248 hp -------- 12.27 lb / hp -------- 15/17/22 mpg
• 2009 Chevy Cobalt SS ----- 260 hp -------- 11.44 lb / hp -------- 22/25/30 mpg

Grassroots Motorsports did a funny comparison about 5 years ago pitting a Honda Odyssey against 60's Porsche 911 and Jaguar XKE. The Odyssey trounced the 60's sports cars in every category: 0-60, 1/4 mile, braking, autocross, fuel economy, etc.

 

It just goes to show that figures lie and liars figure.

You can -prove conclusively- than -any- car is slow if you chose the right statistics.

The -REAL- questions are how slow is "too slow" and how fast is "too fast"? What's a "gas guzzler"? Why do we drive?

If you're making a TV show (Pinks and the British one), you choose unfair comparisons for entertainment.

 

In Europe most drivers accept lower performance than a Prius is capable of. The best-selling cars are the Ford Focus and Vauxhall Astra. You have to equip these with at least a 1.8 litre petrol engine and a manual gearbox before they will out-accelerate a Prius. (Ford have a variable-valve-timing 1.6 that develops 115hp [Pferdestärke, PS, not SAE] which beats the Prius by 0.1s.) Most owners select a 1.6 litre.

The diesels are a bit quicker but you're still looking at a 1.8 litre before it beats the Prius. The Focus 1.6 109hp manages the same time as the Prius, 10.9 seconds.

These cars are physically smaller than the Prius; Ford's equivalent size car is the Mondeo. The Prius again bests both 1.6 petrol variants and the 100PS 1.8 diesel, while only being half a second behind the 125PS 1.8 diesel.

BMW's 3-series all manage under 10 seconds, even the automatics, but the 318i ES starts at £21,520. A fully-equipped Prius T-Spirit is £21,055 including metallic paint (you can add leather interior for an extra £1,325). The entry-level T3 is £17,870 excluding metallic paint (option at £345).

Ford Focus specs
Ford Mondeo specs
BMW 3-series specs

Compared to many other cars on the road - bearing in mind the next six best-selling models after the Focus and Astra are smaller, generally with even smaller engines - the Prius is not slow. The figures above are all for stick-shifts - automatics take a second or so longer.

 

Comparing Prius with those vintage 'muscle' cars from the '70s is like comparing today's Laptop with the Mainframe from those days in terms of 'Performance'. It's not a fair comparison.

Automobile technologies have improved so much that even the Prius' drivetrain itself has more processing power than NASA in those days.

 

It's still a valid comparison. Speed limits haven't changed. The road system hasn't changed, except to get busier. People still use their automobiles for the same basic purposes. Automobile performance was adequate in those days, so why now do we need muscle car performance in a daily driver? That's the issue of this thread. Faster and bigger means better in today's market driven society.

Tom

 

Hear Hear!

(Or is it Here Here! Maybe Hear hear! Perhaps Here hear!)

 

Yes, this is true for many consumer products. In the 1970s it was a big deal to have a 25" color TV and watch a relatively fuzzy analog video signal, maybe having a dozen or 20 channels to choose from. Now if you don't have an HDTV 50" plasma or LCD TV and 100+ channel digital service, forget it.

Presumably there's substantial consumer demand for improved auto performance and handling, or else the cars would not evolve in that direction.

 

You are very correct. The automobile business is completely diven by consumers. Most vehicles are hardly built in their base configuration, consumers want more features, more room, more safety, more power and better gas mileage.

 

No, it's a two way street. Consumers buy what they want, and advertising tells consumers what to buy. Neither is in complete control. It's a complicated and sometimes baffling feedback loop. Demand creates products, and products create demand. If it were as simple as just making what people want, we wouldn't need marketing.

Tom

 

Much of consumer "demand" and domestic vehicle production/sales effort was driven by loopholes. Minivans and SUV's exploited the loopholes at the expense of station wagons and traditional sedans. Artificially cheap gasoline made fuel efficiency a non-consideration in purchasing a vehicle. Who wants to pay for the roads and bridges we use...let the grand kids foot the bill. Yep, swift move.

If you fail to regulate a market intelligently and uniformly you create all sorts of traps and bubbles that destroy the very thing you are trying to help. Wait a minute...are we talking about cars, financial institutions (investment banks with no FDIC insurance and ridiculously lax capital ratios, unregulated and unreported derivative swapping), insurance (AIG and the "no risk" CDS market), real estate (throw out the old rules about income ratios, down payments, appraisals, bundling of misc. into the loan), or stock investment (traditional PE ratios don't matter, "it's different this time", keep all the debt off the balance sheet, two sets of books-one for shareholders-other for IRS, reduced transparency, completely bogus credit ratings)? The sad thing is that while these traps and bubbles are attractive for a time, they eventually kill off those who fully embrace them.