What defines a fast car in 2020?

SkodaMart said:
Doesn’t the Nurburgring lap time give a good indication how a cars going to perform in the real world? (And not a billiard board smooth race track?)
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I'm not sure. It seemed to usher in the age of cars with spine breakingly hard suspension in any car which was remotely sport oriented, whether it was actually sporty or not - eg Audi S-Line. I think for your average B road, you want more compliant suspension, rather than rock hard clattering suspension and rubber band tyres.

Not suggesting this (or other similar examples) was actually developed on the Nurburgring, but just that it was riding on the cost tails of other cars marketed based on lap times, whether it was a hot hatch, sports car or supercar and it almost seemed to be an expectation that hard ride = fast.
 
jellybeard999 said:
The obsession with 0-60 and drag races is baffling to me. It's very dependent on grip and gear ratios and doesn't really say much about driveability.

The marketing people know it and I wonder if cars are being set up to reach specific 0-60 times, to the detriment of actual real world performance.

You only need to look at the carwow YouTube channel - hot hatch drag races :confused: Surely you buy a hot hatch for the handling as much, if not more than, the outright straight-line speed.

It seems to be the replacement for selling cars based on the Nurburgring lap time.

If you wanted to measure speed, a rolling start give a much better measure.
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A lot of cars set up like that will get to 60 quick and then run out of puff, but the masses don't understand that kind of thing and get impressed by the paper performance. And to even do the advertised 0-60 time takes a number of tries and the correct tyres and conditions :/
 
My Z4 has brutally hard M Sport suspension.
Worst riding car I’ve ever experienced, but it’s part of the fun.
Pot holes can actually break suspension springs.
 
jellybeard999 said:
The marketing people know it and I wonder if cars are being set up to reach specific 0-60 times, to the detriment of actual real world performance.
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This has been accentuated more in ev-times, would be interesting to see if ev owners attract more speeding fines,
maybe they should similarly publish 60-0 braking distance.
 
jellybeard999 said:
I'm not sure. It seemed to usher in the age of cars with spine breakingly hard suspension in any car which was remotely sport oriented, whether it was actually sporty or not - eg Audi S-Line. I think for your average B road, you want more compliant suspension, rather than rock hard clattering suspension and rubber band tyres.

Not suggesting this (or other similar examples) was actually developed on the Nurburgring, but just that it was riding on the cost tails of other cars marketed based on lap times, whether it was a hot hatch, sports car or supercar and it almost seemed to be an expectation that hard ride = fast.
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I do agree on terrible rides on modern cars, they seem to focused on getting a stiff road, which in Germany works fine as the roads are so smooth in many places, but here with our ever corrupted roads its hard work.
 
[TW]Fox said:
I think you are being a bit nostalgic. History is full of examples where there was a boring looking saloon offering sports car performance - the Sierra Cosworth or BMW M5 of the 1980's, the Lotus Carlton, V8 M5 and E55 AMG of the 1990s (1992 even brought us the boring looking performance estate car - the Audi RS2) and then the V10/V8 BiTurbo Mercedes and BMW saloons of the mid 2000's onwards.

I think you need to go back 40 years or more before what you say is true.
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This is an example of how a sports car should "smoke 'em!"

I'm not for a moment looking for crazy autobahn speeds, this is what i'm after...

 
simc1978 said:
Pretty quick is hot hatch

Fast starts somewhere around M3 territory
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The trouble is hot hatches are now challenging the M3.
And cars like the M3 are challenging super cars.
Lines are blurred.
 
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simc1978 said:
Really what hot hatches bean an M3, I was thinking Focus, Megane, Golf, etc. I was kind of discounting the Merc as north of 50k feels like it's in another bracket.
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And Tesla’s are challenging super bikes.
Megane, CTR pretty damned competent on a twisty road, a M3 isn’t going to be that much quicker real world.
Golf R less than 4 secs to 60?
 
My GS will do 0-60 sub 4 secs.
Trust me it’s not like mashing the pedal in a Tesla (never driven one personally) but you are hanging on for your life, gear changes and clutch & throttle control perfect back wheel squirming.
The GS isn’t a fast bike, not even close but it’s not slow either.
 
Megane RS3 or 4 will leave M3 and plenty of other cars for dead too ;) its all about torque & how it puts it down on the road plus hot hatches have amazing power to weight ratios. :p

400-500-600+ BHP cars with mega engines are great too but they have to haul a chassis which weights 100-200KG more than a hot hatch :eek: the extra horsepower does not really kick in until you are well into 3 figures licence ending territory then & only then will you smoke a hot hatch!

If money was no object I would still take a hot hatch over something which had more weight & 400-600BHP as running costs on those are shocking vs a hot hatch uses a lot of petrol on the turbo engines but the other running costs are a lot cheaper to say an M3!!
 
AWPC said:
Megane RS3 or 4 will leave M3 and plenty of other cars for dead too ;)
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Maybe if you tune the **** off it. If not, even a 21 year old E46 M3 does the 0 - 60 dash a second quicker than a MK4 Megane RS. 1.7 seconds quicker than a MK3.

The new M3 is 2 - 2.7 seconds quicker to 60.

I do like the RenaultSport cars a lot, but the RS Megane and M3 are leagues apart. :p
 
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