Horsepower has certainly been in the news a ton over the last couple of weeks with Chrysler dropping the 707hp number on the Hellcat, Ford announcing that even the least powerful 2015 Mustang will have more than 300hp, and Ford also dropped knowledge about the next generation of Super Duty trucks which will have an available Powerstroke with way more than 400hp and exactly 880 lb/ft of torque. Combine that with the fact that around every corner in every small town in America there are guys building cars to run on Drag Week, diesel trucks being hot rodded to the hilt, and muscle cars with suspension components that dedicated road racers didn’t even have a couple years ago.
It is all awesome and while old guys like to espouse how the 1960s were way better than all this, we’d gladly pit a muscle car like a 1964 GTO against a Taurus SHO to see how that turns out. This is the golden age of accessibility to horsepower in whatever form you want it in. That seemingly happy statement naturally leads to another less fun question. For instance, where will it end? Not racing or those things, but rather when will the escalating battle cool off? Are we due a decade like the 1970s as far as performance cars go in the future?
Look, in a couple of months a guy is going to be able to walk into a Ford dealer and buy a pickup truck that makes more horsepower and torque than a tractor trailer truck did not too long ago. What in the hell does a guy with a pickup truck need 880 lb/ft of torque for? Towing the fifth wheel at 120 is nice but doesn’t add a lot of fuel economy. The numbers still help sell trucks and that is why each year there is a bump here and a bump there and it is like an old school cat and mouse game between the companies to have the lead going into sales season. The same goes for the Hellcat. Regular Joe Blow can walk in, plunk down the cost of the car and then roll off the lot in a 707hp Challenger with a factory warranty. That is completely bat crap insane. The reality is that the “mighty” engines of the 1960s muscle car era are are now largely virtually relegated to plaything status. Oh, you have a 450hp LS6 Chevelle? That’s nice, allow me to wipe the floor with it using a 430hp Hyundai sedan with an eight speed transmission.
The power and performance of the muscle car era was amplified (almost cartoonishly) by the fact that the automotive decade after their heyday was so terrible that it made the cars look even more fast and powerful than they were actually were. Don’t get us wrong here, we’re not taking swipes at the muscle cars that we all know and love but it does bear mentioning that shortly after the performance zenith of that era was reached, it all went off a cliff. I am not so sure that we have any cliffs looming today and I’m also not so sure that we have reached a performance zenith yet, which is why I’m asking where all of this will end.
Undoubtedly there will be a truck released in the next couple of years with 900 lb/ft of torque and there will be a factory muscle car released with 750hp because that’s what happens. At some point, one or all of these companies will decided that enough is enough but we’re not there yet. On the other hand, hot rodders will never make that decision because that thought process does not enter their mind. Take Drag Week for example. When Larson made the first six second run and the first 200mph pass did people say, “Thank God that happened, now we can slow our cars down!” Hell no. They said, “If he can do it once, I can do it all week,” and then Tom Bailey did and this year they’ll go even faster and they’ll go faster the year after that or until some rules show up and put a hamper on it for a while. I’m not suggesting that there needs to be such rules but that’s the nature of what this is.
The high performance aftermarket continues to engineer parts and pieces that allow the regular hot rodder to bolt on or swap in more power than he has ever had the ability to utilize before. Engine builders like ProLine, Steve Morris, Tom Nelson, and a host of others specialize in packages that make 1,000, 2,000, and 3,000hp. There are street cars making more horsepower than top fuelers did in the not so distant past. Were will it end?
On the sportsman racing side of things there are more small tire cars out there running around making four second eighth mile laps than ever before, there are nostalgia nitro funny cars in droves assaulting drag strips every weekend owned and crewed largely owned and wrenched on by regular guys who have jobs during the week. There are pro touring cars that can pull well over a G on the skid pad and still get driven all over the place on the roads between races. There are huge mega-trucks flying over dunes, slogging through the mud, and living like overgrown desert trucks because of awesome shock and suspension technology, and there are showroom stock cars not built in Italy and not costing $250,000 which can embarrass the like of anything that has come before them. We love all this stuff more than you can possibly imagine, but where will it end?
I’m thinking insurance and/or gas prices are going to climb at some point, and gradually put a chokehold on the industry. Best to enjoy the present state of things while we can.
High horsepower cars, even the relatively “cheap” ones are still priced beyond what I can afford. Not to mention trucks with too much torque are anoying to drive in the winter. My Cummins with “only” 650 lb ft will break loose on corners when there a drop of water within a mile radius. I would love to own a Hell Cat, but the car probably still weighs over two tons. Ford has proven power-to-weight ratio can’t be overlooked, and in my opinion, means more that total horsepower. I believe it will taper off soon, and Big Brother will invent another way to kill horsepower like they did with global warming, and the “fuel shortage”.
It WILL end ….. guaranteed . And probably if the industry insiders are correct .. a whole hell of a lot sooner than anyone might expect .
All bets are … once the Beer Addled mullet crowd starts crashing these left and right … as well as gas availability wanes … the manufactures will pull back toot suite … or faster .
But to be honest ? I’m OK with that ! I personally have had my fill of overly exaggerated HP and performance claims [ the HellCat in particular ] …. over weight and over sized road hogs with all the handling of a pig in a mud bog pretending to be performance cars
My hoping that sooner than later ALL the manufactures … but especially the Not So Big Three … finally come to their senses .. realizing that light weight .. smaller size , less complexity and less horsepower is the Performance / Muscle /Sports / Super/HyperCar formula for a Sustainable yet still fun as hell future .
Learning a lesson [ or a hundred ] from the McLaren F1 road car that even McLaren has forgotten lately
let’s watch that beer addled mullet crowd talk, city boy. grin.
There’s an F1 for sale pretty close to me – has real miles on it and three seats. Pinnacle of awesomeness when I first saw one, if weren’t for that pesky 250k price tag… that’s old news though, you know, those family cars that run 240 mph.
All this stuff is insanely wonderful. Sadly, when the Chinese come over here to collect the money we owe them, it’s probably gonna stop.
Have you guys seen the mobile homes people are pulling? These trucks need 850 plus foot pounds!!! The trailers are as big as a semi trailer….
Ah yes, the usual GuitarSlinger insults to people whom he stereotypes. GuitarSlinger, for a senile old hippie who drives a VW van you don’t have much room to talk. The only reason you insult people on Bangshift is because no one else wants to hear your shit. In your “music career” how many bands did you break up because of your shit?
Also I suggest you see the above video of the HellCat Challenger vs a Hemi Challenger at your Colorado drag strip.
Take it all in gang. ………..the muscle car/sedan/wagon/truck era is NOW! Live it, love it, or leave it! We will all be talking about this heyday in our old age.
As we know it the HP race will taper off ,but the cars will get quicker and faster.
Start paying attention to the current F1 cars. The engine is no longer an engine,its a Power Module. A very small 1.5l Turbo V6 boosted with an electric motor limited to a 200HP boost. The package is capable of over 700HP. Regenitive braking that has swunk the rear brakes to coffee saucer sizes. The RPM are limited to 15000 , but most teams run less than 11,000 due to fuel usage limits of 100l per hour.
That technoligy is being used in the current Super Cars and a few lesser road cars but in less than 5 years (my guess) Corvette will have it here. They will do a one shot 6.0l V8 with a “push to pass” 300hp boost putting a potental 1000HP to the wheels. The “lesser” cars will do with V6’s with only about 500 total HP available.
The HP race will not end,it just will not be completely powered by gasoline.
All isn’t sweetness and light . . .
Most of the single-digit E.T. “street” cars are not remotely emissions-legal and do not come from IM inspection areas of the country. An emissions enforcement crack-down could crimp a lot of the so-called “street-legal” fun.
The overwhelming majority of enthusiasts cannot afford any of the new supercars with more than 500 h.p.,or their outrageous aftermarket variants, and their sales numbers are correspondingly minuscule.
Fuel economy standards are increasing at more than 1 m.p.g. per year until the middle of the next decade, which will gut the market for big-cube engines and gasoline V8s, and drive up prices.
The current generation of pony cars are the heaviest, most expensive, and most complex in history.
Affordable new RWD performance is virtually dead as a segment and junkyards are increasingly packed with units that are not very suitable for high performance builds.
The performance “youth market” continues to shrink and interest of the young in driving in general and high-performance driving and motor racing in particular are each waning.
Costs to obtain more performance from newer vehicles (especially with emissions-legal parts) continue escalate.
Many events in the sport are biased against newer cars and their “check-writing” owners, dividing the sport at a time when it needs to be unified.
Does GS really drive a VW bus?? and that’s the pinnacle of performance and handling that he slags off at everyone else from? Jesus….
OK, onto the matter at hand – I think that one (or really two) manufacturers have put a toe in the water regarding going a bit lighter and less powerful – the Toyota / Subaru 86 – bit over 200 hp in a relatively light, sporty car….I mean, Japanese cars are not my thing but as a concept I get it….years ago I had, of all things, a Mini Moke – 1 litre engine, no roof, weighed about as much as I did at the time – but jeez was it fun! Cars with low power can be fun too, if they handle – at least you’re not afraid to use everything available! So how about a lighter, rear wheel drive, small V8, manual trans sporty car that really handles? I’d drive one…
I’ll start to get hyped up when I see the actual out the door price on this latest generation muscle cars.
In the “old” days it actually was possible for the average Joe to own a ground shaker and many of my friends and I did.
When you start talking $40k plus you’re out of the range of most. A good example is the Corvette. While advertised as relatively low cost version, the top of the line that gets raved about is out of sight price wise.
My guess is most of these cars were only meant to bring people in the show room to sell them the “second best” version.
Let me know when someone that you know actually buys the 700 hp Challenger and then we’ll talk again.
And Yes, we all know Jay Leno.
Bob
I see the ’70’s returning. Horsepower going up and then the government shutting it down. Gas prices will sore and a lot of muscle cars will be parked. You won’t be able to pick them up for cheap like the ’70’s cause guys have way too much invested in them. Insurance will be going up.I see another gas crunch coming with all the fighting in the middle east.