300bhp per tonne
Discussion
_Neal_ said:
Ares said:
The only time I've been done for speeding in the last 20 years was in 2005/6 driving a Toyota Yaris, doing 77 in a 70 (A34, 5.30am, Sunny dry June morning...mumble mumble....)
The beauty of a 300bhp/tonne car, and a 200bhp/tonne, and a 400bhp/tonne, is that the throttle is not a switch, and so all cars can effectively be 50bhp/tonne when you want.
My car is easily as easy to drive around town at under 20mph that Mrs Ares' 1-series!
See my post above - for me it's about whether you can use all/most of that performance fully, and whether you find not being able to frustrating or not. As I say, 200bhp/tonne is, for me, the sweet spot. The M3 was particularly good as the response at any revs and speed was so nice (and it sounded great) - may well be the same thing for you and your Alfa. I find my CLS has too much performance for the road really, but so much torque low down that it's fun at low speeds. The beauty of a 300bhp/tonne car, and a 200bhp/tonne, and a 400bhp/tonne, is that the throttle is not a switch, and so all cars can effectively be 50bhp/tonne when you want.
My car is easily as easy to drive around town at under 20mph that Mrs Ares' 1-series!
Haven't read the full thread so apologies if someone has already made this point, but I've always found that 100 bhp / tonne is "nippy" (a 130 bhp Fabia vRS TDI for example), 150 bhp / tonne is quick (Clio 172) and should allow for easy overtaking, and 200 bhp / tonne and above is fast (most modern turbo hot hatches now). Purely talking road driving here though. I can imagine more is always better on track.
I'm more concerned with how a car feels though. Giving the example of the Fabia as before, it looks weak on paper but actually feels quite fast due to the low down torque, whereas my old FN2 Type-R was likely at least 50% above that in PWR but actually felt quite flat much of the time due to the fact it had bugger all low down torque and was probably slower than the Fabia 90% of the time (again on the road). This is of course, totally individual to the car.
I'm more concerned with how a car feels though. Giving the example of the Fabia as before, it looks weak on paper but actually feels quite fast due to the low down torque, whereas my old FN2 Type-R was likely at least 50% above that in PWR but actually felt quite flat much of the time due to the fact it had bugger all low down torque and was probably slower than the Fabia 90% of the time (again on the road). This is of course, totally individual to the car.
Ares said:
I've never been frustrated in the Alfa, partly as the steering feel is fun even well under speed limit speeds.....and that extra power means that TED when overtaking on narrower roads is easier to minimise that element of frustration too.
Well there you go then, driving the right car for you. _Neal_ said:
PS - Always unsure on here as to why the bike/car debate is so polarising. Most bikers are also car drivers, and as said we're all "mode of transport enthusiasts" or however you want to frame it 
Indeed! I have equal love for car and bike these days, both tremendously good fun.TameRacingDriver said:
Haven't read the full thread so apologies if someone has already made this point, but I've always found that 100 bhp / tonne is "nippy" (a 130 bhp Fabia vRS TDI for example), 150 bhp / tonne is quick (Clio 172) and should allow for easy overtaking, and 200 bhp / tonne and above is fast (most modern turbo hot hatches now). Purely talking road driving here though.
I'd go with that; for a long time I was in 200SX's, C43's and a 5.0 E500. They were all just over 150bhp/tonne and felt quick to me.My current E500 has around 200 bhp/tonne. It feels a LOT quicker - properly fast to me, anyway.
As others have said the jump from 200-250 must make a huge difference again.
Talking (road) cars here, bikes of course.
It's a useful stat and explains a lot - at least about straight-line performance at any rate.
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