0-60 times.

[J4CKO]

Its not as simple as that, you are talking modern cars, some can get to sixty in the blink of an eye but its a drama free, traction controlled lesson in gathering momentum. Five seconds to sixty in a modern biggish but still not AMG territory auto Merc is pretty uneventfull, try 7 seconds in a fruity old Escort or something, nine in a Big Healey or eventually (possibly) in our Fiat 500, the difference between driving and pressing an accelerator.

[Dick_Phallus]

Slow to me depends on the car. A Fiesta doing the 60 dash in 9 seconds seems pretty nippy to me, whereas an E Class doing it in the same would be slow.

[kiteless]

J4CKO said:

Its not as simple as that, you are talking modern cars, some can get to sixty in the blink of an eye but its a drama free, traction controlled lesson in gathering momentum. Five seconds to sixty in a modern biggish but still not AMG territory auto Merc is pretty uneventfull, try 7 seconds in a fruity old Escort or something, nine in a Big Healey or eventually (possibly) in our Fiat 500, the difference between driving and pressing an accelerator.

Agreed.

The quickest car I've been in is my FiL's flat nose 930 turbo. It's concours, well maintained, and has - I suspect - the full 330bhp and by fk it's quick! Yet, about a year ago, a colleague at work bought an Audi S3 and shortly after got it chipped to 305bhp. I thought it would feel much quicker due to 4WD and modern running gear. But no. It was fast, but nowhere near as visceral as the Porker at full chat.

Make one think what a 917's acceleration was like........

[mat205125]

Great example! On the Top Trumps cards, or head to head, the modded S3 would match the Porsche in a straight line drag from the lights.

[J4CKO]

Been in a few 911 turbo's and those old ones now do seem undernourished but they are dramatically quick, quite light, manic power delivery and you dont have that safe feeling you get froma modern, no drive by wire, no dual mass flywheels or anything else that robs some terror ! I went in an original one as a kid and it left me shaky, rode in one with a manic Swiss woman in Geneva who delighted in my discomfort as she hammered the still RWD only car in the rain, provoking it to twitch.

I went in a Tickford Capri, only meant to be 204 bhp but that felt pretty rapid as well.

[aka_kerrly]

These threads always crack me up as people seem to forget what fast and what normal are. You have to remember that 90% of the population dont even use full throttle or would consider going anywhere near the rev limiter. Baring this in mind and as someone else said the majority of average cars take 8-12 seconds a car that can do 60 in 8 seconds driven aggressively will be considered fast to most people. Christ people think standard mx5s are sports cars and therfore consider them fast lol.

20-60 30-70, 50-100 are far better indications of what quick is, cars that can crack 40mph speed increases in a couple of seconds are dam fast and this may not be shown in the 0-60 time. Some cars gear ratios mean that 60 seems slow as it cant be reached in 2nd but in gear times (especially on close ratio boxes) can be exceptionally fast and allow the car to punch far above its weight in a racing environment.

Id say anything sub 8seconds is enough to be considered fast to most,very fast is anything sub 5 but then some imprezzas/evos get into this catagory more due to 4x4 set up than absolute power and would be considerably slower in other tests than eg hyper cars that are 0.5s quicker to 60 but upwards of 3-4seconds quicker to 100 and 10seconds quicker to 150 so on.

dave

[Switch`]

A better metric would be a 0-60-round a specified set of corners of varying mentalness-60-0

Now THAT'S a metric

[jbi]

these days I would consider any car that takes longer than 9 seconds to get to 60 as slow.

For example this horrible, turgid, boring appliance still does 0-60 in 6.2 seconds



I think the OP's chart with this in mind seems fair

Slow:above 9 seconds
Fair:7.0-9.0
Poky:5.0-7.0
Fast:4.0-5.0
Supercar:below 4 seconds

Edited by jbi on Thursday 24th June 15:36

[Fish]

Sub 3 secs does make you grin abit. unfortunately everthing slower than that now feels well slow.

[IceBoy]

Too slow 13+ seconds
Slow: 10-13 seconds
Fair: 8.5-10 seconds
Poky: 6-8.5 seconds
Fast: 4-6 seconds
Supercar:below 4 seconds

IceBoy

[jon-]

I like the way people are grouping 4 and 6 seconds in the same group. That's a 50% difference and a MASSIVE difference in feel. A 4 second car feels fast. A 6 second car doesn't. (The difference between my track car and 350z)

[thesyn]

Why 0 -60, my view is that if the 60 -100mph time is equal to or less than the 0 -60.

That indicates a quick car IMO

[RobM77]

0-60 is criticised a lot, but I still think it is a pretty good measure of how fast a car is, although becoming marginal nowadays as cars get faster. Sure, you're probably never going to floor it away from rest in your own car, but you know that a 6 second car is slower than a 5 second car, and that's good enough for most people I reckon. The only complication is transmission... 4WD doesn't really have much of an advantage over RWD off the line in the dry (look on You Tube at the 996 vs 360, or the Mclaren F1 vs the Veyron), but FWD is severely handicapped compared with RWd or 4WD, and it's not fair comparing the 0-60 of a RWd car with a FWD car. A 6 second FWD car would have a 6 second RWD car in a straight line in the "real world" once the traction's put down, because the FWd car did the 0-30 really slowly, and then took off quicker than the RWD car to make up the defecit.

Nevertheless, here's my seat of the pants stats:

For a mundane wobbly FWD shopping car like a Focus, Yaris, Civic etc:

Slow: above 15 seconds (Panda)
Fair:9-15 (Yaris)
Poky:7 - 9 (Mondeo ST220, Alfa's quicker models etc)
Pokier:5 - 6 (Focus RS etc)
Fast - n/a
Supercar: n/a


For a proper performance car with a lower CofG, rear drive, balanced chassis, wider tyres etc things change somewhat:

Slow: above 6 seconds (RX8)
Fair: 5-6 (135i)
Poky:4 - 5 (E46 M3)
Fast: 3.5 - 4 (Caterham R400)
Supercar: below 3.5 (Noble M400, Caterham R500 etc)

The change is because when a car takes something in its stride it doesn't feel exciting. This is why cars like the 106 GTi and Clio Cup win group tests against meatier stuff. the truth is that something balanced like a 3 series doesn't feel fast until you get well over 300bhp (250bhp/tonne), whereas a 205 GTi always felt fast with 120bhp (150bhp/tonne).

The exponential scale is because 0-60 is an exponential relationship with power to weight ratio.

[300bhp/ton]

sebhaque said:

These figures tend to get thrown around a lot when it comes to cars, with both petrolheads and non-petrolheads.

I've found that people's expectations differ as to whether a car is slow, poky, fast, or supercar. Some people think a 6-second to 60 is major quick, whereas others won't settle for a time above 4 seconds.

So I pitch to you - what are your boundaries for the following?

Slow:
Decent:
Fast:
Supercar:

Here are mine as an example.

Slow:above 9 seconds
Fair:7.0-9.0
Poky:5.0-7.0
Fast:4.0-5.0
Supercar:below 4 seconds

Now I know there are anomalies are that (i.e many supercars taking over 4 seconds to reach 60 but powering on from there after) but it'd be nice to see what you folks thing. Bit of harmless fun, I suppose.

0-60mph is pretty pointless, even more so for anything in the 5 sec range or lower.

Figures always confused and clouded with 0-62mph times which are different.

All IMO

[300bhp/ton]

sebhaque said:

So I pitch to you - what are your boundaries for the following?

Slow:
Decent:
Fast:
Supercar:

lol WTF

Even your own examples don't follow your guidlines...

sebhaque said:

Here are mine as an example.

Slow:above 9 seconds
Fair:7.0-9.0
Poky:5.0-7.0
Fast:4.0-5.0
Supercar:below 4 seconds

[petrolveins]

Wooo, that means my car on based on the opinions of most of you lot is just off being slow, bit nippy one of you called it. I feel quite proud now.

From the cars I have driven/been in this is how my scale would go:

Pretty gutless and pathetic: 12+
Feeling a bit nippy: 9 - 12
Feeling quite quick: 7 - 8.9
Really rather rapid: 5 - 6.9
Beginning to feel quite mental: 3.0 - 4.9
Completely Bonkers: Sub 3 (I'm guessing here, as I've never been in car that quick)

I still think that it's difficult to categorise every car into this. For example, by my scale an Audi S3 and a E60 530d would both be "really rather rapid". But the difference between the experience of 0-60 in the two is quite astonishing, the S3 feels positively bonkers compared the 530d.

[peterattheboro]

gareth.e said:

Heres my interpretation of your scales:

Slow:above 10 seconds
able:8.0-9.9
warm:6.0-7.9
fast:4.6-6.0
rapid:3.6-4.5
mental:3.5 seconds or less

This.

[RobM77]

It's really interesting reading people's thoughts on various cars and what constitutes fast and not Keep them coming!

[Kentish]

My Audi is a bit modified and has around 270 horses and good for a 60mph dash in approx 5.5s but that does feel quite slow to me now.

Until I hire a car and then get back in mine and it feels pretty rapid again.

The weight of a car makes a big difference to how quick it feels, those first couple of secs in the Audi feel slow due to its weight but if you rev high and dump the clutch it will fly but the clutch may not last long and I certainly would launch like that very often.

If you pull away normally it feels heavy but once you start to move you can get through the box and into illegal speeds very quickly.

[RobM77]

Kentish said:

My Audi is a bit modified and has around 270 horses and good for a 60mph dash in approx 5.5s but that does feel quite slow to me now.

Until I hire a car and then get back in mine and it feels pretty rapid again.

The weight of a car makes a big difference to how quick it feels, those first couple of secs in the Audi feel slow due to its weight but if you rev high and dump the clutch it will fly but the clutch may not last long and I certainly would launch like that very often.

If you pull away normally it feels heavy but once you start to move you can get through the box and into illegal speeds very quickly.

I also find that whilst neither of my cars feel fast (Elise S2 111S and Z4C; 806kg/156bhp and 1380kg/265bhp)) there are certain times when they do; perhaps if you've been driving slowly for a while, or you happen to be on a narrow road or in just the right situation etc.

Rather dissapointingly compared with my childhood dreams of fast cars of the 80s and 90s, there's only one road car that I've driven or been in that actually felt quick, and that was a Noble M400. I was actually slightly uncomfortable with flooring it when I left the pits at Bedford (somethign I'd do in any car I've ever driven), but I did on the next straight and it did feel very pokey indeed Shame I hated the turbo lag around the corners!

My ambition is to progress from racing junior level single seaters to something serious like an F3000 (someone will correct me on this I know, but I believe they're about 450-500bhp and 550kg), but sadly I can't afford the engine bills.