Weakest engine in heaviest car?

[Dave_]

Another vote here for the 55bhp escort van. 1.8 litres of non turbo'd slush.

I used to travel back and forth from Glasgow to Edinburgh in mine where i usually became a hazard to HGV's on a large hill at Livingston.

The most hateful engine/body pairing to roll off a production line.

[cris654321]

considerably underpowered i would say....

[Beartato]

This may have been mentioned, I've only had a skim of the thread:

How much does an Ultima GTR weigh? I've seen one with 800bhp and this one has 723bhp and 637ft/lbs. A very strong engine no matter which way you look at it. Must be in with a shout of outdoing the V8 Atom or Caparo T1 with regards to bhp/tonne.





Although having that sticker on the front would make you a total tt

Edited by Beartato on Tuesday 22 February 21:29

[VeeFour]

Beartato said:

This may have been mentioned, I've only had a skim of the thread:

I feel you may have misunderstood the words 'weakest' and 'heaviest'.

[Beartato]

VeeFour said:

I feel you may have misunderstood the words 'weakest' and 'heaviest'.

THE OP YOU MONG also said:

What's the strongest engine (bhp) in the lightest car (kg)?

[Lucas North]

oldcynic said:

had several of these as company vans back in the early 90's and regularly touched an indicated 95mph or more. Compared with my 1 litre 4x4 Panda they were civilised and swift, although the Panda would outrun most things from 0-15mph off the lights due to a stupidly low gear ratio (just enough to get ahead and pick the right lane). At 70mph the Panda engine was spinning so fast it sounded like an aeroplane.

98elise said:

In the 90's my company replaced my 1.8 petrol Escort company car, with a brand new non turbo diesel Escort. I live on a steep hill, and I couldn't go into third without it starting to slow down again. It was by far the worst car experience I've ever had.

The director that introduced the policy had a nice company Granada Scorpio Cosworth in the car park.

I'd been with the company 10 years, but I left shortly afterwards naming the car as the main reason for leaving, I did a lot of miles and hated every minute of driving it.

My next job included a brand new 2ltr Petrol Mondeo

I sympathise gentlemen. Especially you 98elise. I would have flat-out called that director a selfish git as I left.

[HereBeMonsters]

G350 said:

I bet no-one on here has such an underpowered daily driver as I do.

1994 G350 turbo diesel G-wagon



134 bhp pulling 2300 kgs

58 bhp per tonne.

But I've had it 14 years and driven it in 31 countries and I love it

Arthur? Is that you?

[Nuclear Biscuit]

Many years ago I was involved in a job that tangentially involved the legal power to weight ratio of a road going vehicle. I doubt if this is still true but we were informed that 4hp/ton was the legal minimum acceptable at that time in the eyes of the law

[Talksteer]

Dave^ said:

The clue is in the question...

To be frank, I'm disappointed!! I was hoping you'd throw in some obscure yank tanks in for both...

Actually the yank tank is pretty nippy....

[edo]

Beartato said:

This may have been mentioned, I've only had a skim of the thread:

How much does an Ultima GTR weigh? I've seen one with 800bhp and this one has 723bhp and 637ft/lbs. A very strong engine no matter which way you look at it. Must be in with a shout of outdoing the V8 Atom or Caparo T1 with regards to bhp/tonne.





Although having that sticker on the front would make you a total tt

Edited by Beartato on Tuesday 22 February 21:29

number 9 according to this site

http://www.supercarworld.com/cgi-bin/showtop10.cgi...

[Nuclear Biscuit]

Oddly enough, my first car had a 75hp 1.3 engine and seemed spritely enough at the time. There again it only weighed about 900kg vs nearly a tonne and a half for modern hatchbacks.

[XJSJohn]

edo said:

Audi A6 2.0TDIe avant has to be up there..

you can get them in 1.8 turbo petrol here.

also 1.4 in a Mitsu Lancer, 1.4 ina VW touran, 1.5 in a Honda wave (people carrier thing)

[shalmaneser]

I had a Skoda Fabia 1.2 6V 'HTP' (stood for 'high torque power' apparently) as a hire car once.

It was frankly ridiculous, even my mother, who doesn't know or care about cars commented and has no interest in going fast commented on how slow it was when she drove it.

54 bhp in a car that must have weighed well over a ton was simply too little, but having seen some of the other cars on this thread it must have been a rocketship!

[davepoth]

The early 70s Chevy Impala was 4275lbs, or a bit under two metric tonnes. It could be bought with a "Turbo Thrift" 4.1 Straight 6, pounding out 145hp. about 75bhp per tonne, which is less than an old style Ford Ka.

[anonymous-user]

The net rating of the '72 Oldsmobile 440 was 225HP. Quite a feat of engineering to hobble over 7 litres of V8 to that level

I think the whole heap of dung weighs in about 2000 odd kilos so whilst it isn't the absolute weakest it should receive a special mention for trying very hard.

[Citman]

Weren't the oil crisis era (late 70s/early 80s) Cadillac and Oldsmobile V8s fairly pitiful in that regard too?

Something feeble like 105hp from the 5.7l diesel and only around 40hp more from the 6.0l petrol to shift a fair hunk of steel around?

[Section 8]

Cheverolet gave the option of an Isuzu 2.2 Diesel in its S-10 Blazer. No stats for the weight of the car but i recon it's a proper porker being a 70s yank SUV. The engine gave out 58 bhp.....!

[G350]

HereBeMonsters said:

Arthur? Is that you?

I've been called a lot of names in my time but never Arthur.

[Mr2Mike]

Section 8 said:

Cheverolet gave the option of an Isuzu 2.2 Diesel in its S-10 Blazer. No stats for the weight of the car but i recon it's a proper porker being a 70s yank SUV. The engine gave out 58 bhp.....!

This mentions a weight of 4462lb (a bit over 2 metric tonnes), but doesn't specify which model it refers to. Can't be far off though.

[G350]

Section 8 said:

Cheverolet gave the option of an Isuzu 2.2 Diesel in its S-10 Blazer. No stats for the weight of the car but i recon it's a proper porker being a 70s yank SUV. The engine gave out 58 bhp.....!

Wow, that is desperately low!

However, a quick Google told me the S-10 Blazer was a downsized 80's SUV called "light weight" in Popular Science's 1983 3000 mile test. Their V6 model weighed in at around 3150 lbs which is 1429 kg, giving the diesel version around 41 bhp / tonne.

Can't imagine it sold many of those!