July 23, 2015 • 41 mins
At first, it might sound too good to be true: a car with a competitive 0-60 that doesn't cost a fortune? Luckily, a listener suggestion inspired Scott and Ben to explore the possibilities of having affordability AND performance. Listen in to hear the good news.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car Stuff from house stuff works dot com. I'm welcome
to car Stuff. I'm Scott and I am Ben. As always,
we are here with no Gone. In sixty seconds, Brown like, yeah,
he's a In addition to being our super producer, he
(00:24):
is a man of many names. On and sixty said,
that's a perfect nat name for today's episode. It's not
the worst film either, No, it's actually and the original
and the remain I think a lot of people do
not like the remake, but each his own. Again, I
think I like both. I like both what they are,
you know what I mean, I don't compare them that well.
(00:45):
That often dramatically different feel too. Yeah, yeah, I gotta say,
you know what, just now that we're talking about all this,
I think I mean, once I start watching even a
minute clip of the original, I feel like I gotta
watch more of the original. But the same is not
true of the remake. So if I watch a minute
of it or so, I don't feel like I have
(01:06):
to watch more of that one. And maybe that says
something I don't know, And that does say something. We'll
also just given the just given the age of the original.
When did that come out? Original man? Early seventies, I think, yeah, yeah,
even like even in the early seventies, you know, the
the use of uh editing, right editing techniques and the
(01:27):
use of music were so very different in comparison to
the modern news, you know, and knowing what we know
about that film and that it was the directors of
the driving and all the crashes, some of the horrific
things that he went through to make that happen. Yeah,
he's a wild man. Man, we're way off tracking away
from from a nickname man. Yeah, we went, We went
from zero to sixty real quick on those tangents. But
(01:50):
this brings us to today's episode, which, like many of
our favorite topics, was inspired by a listener male and
odd least pacific listener mail. As you pointed out earlier today, Right,
we're talking about this from you know, it's a listener
mail that we read in I think it was in
a Nuts and Bolts episode recently, and we said that
we get to this topic and here we are. It
(02:12):
was from philth C and Phil C wrote in um.
Originally he wrote in about seeing a Cadillac E L
R out on the street. So the electric Cadillac, and
I had mentioned, you know, that he saw one and
wasn't I think we laughed about this even the first time.
I also said, yeah, just can I do the quote?
Of course I didn't know people are so inclined to
throw money away. Ah, yes, yeah, because we're laughing about
(02:32):
how it basically it's a Chevy Vault wrapped in Cadillac
skin with a lot of bells and whistles that the
Vault doesn't have. I understand, but uh, yeah, he's He's right.
It's very very expensive car and it's really small. When
you see it, it's it's kind of beautiful. It is
a beautiful car though. So his topic suggestion actually comes
from a PS. To that note, he wrote, PS love
(02:55):
the top ten lists? How about an episode on the
top ten fastest zero to sixty new cars under thirty
dollars under thirty thousand dollars. And that's the catch right there,
that's the rub. Yeah, that's that's the part that got
got our interest because it makes it way more complicated.
If you have a little more complicated, more interesting is
(03:17):
a better word, Scott, Because if you have all of
the theoretical money in the world, then it's not very
difficult to find cars with just obscene zero to sixty times,
you know, but this puts it a little bit more
in the bounds of realism for quite a few people. Yeah.
(03:38):
In fact, it brings it down below the average price
of a sedan, I believe, and you know when we
we uh limit this to under thirty dollars and and
honestly to be supported, I was kind of surprised by
the list. There's a lot of really nice cars on
the under thirty thousand lists that are um, you know,
quick in the zero to sixty sprint. And I think
that I don't know, you want to do this before
(04:00):
under after, Probably let's do it after where we talk
about maybe the reasons why is zero to sixty isn't
maybe the measurement that you really want to use to
measure cars performance. UM, there's another one that might be
a better gauge of that if you want, if you
want kind of like a real world gauge of performance. UM.
And we can also talk about you know why that's important,
(04:20):
you know, like why, um, why manufacturers are are slanting
it this way? So zero to sixties long been a
measurement that we've used to measure cars performance and it
comes from you know, very Um, I don't know, I
guess the best way to put it would be like
that secluded but but closed test track situations where they're
(04:41):
very much in control of the situation, conditions, have very
control conditions with with drivers that are highly skilled. Um,
you know what, we're probably getting too much into the
weeds here on this already. So this list that we're
gonna read comes from a site because they've already compiled
the vehicles. We you and I don't get to get
out in drive cars. We don't view cars, we don't
sell cars or anything like that. So we get to, uh,
(05:04):
you know, kind of go through these lists and kind
of have fun with what they report on. And in
this case they actually had had done this list for us.
Really it's at the kind of the fastest cars under
thirty dollars and it's from autobitel dot com and it
was written in so it's it's current. All these models
will be models. The thing is, the list isn't a
(05:25):
you know, ten through one, you know, ten count down
to the fastest veeple or something. No, exactly, but I
have I've taken the time to go through and do
that so that um I can put them in one
through ten order later, maybe after we read through all these.
So we'll just go through the list and you hear
some some quick ones, and they'll get faster, and we'll
get a little slower, a little faster, a little slower,
(05:45):
and then we'll go back at the end and tell
you which one was the fastest, just in case you
weren't paying attention to the top one. Phil, All right,
well let's go ahead and start off. As we're getting
into this, we'll go ahead and say that this this
year brings us to some very interesting tipping points in
automotive stuff. Overall, the price of the sedan is continually increased, right,
(06:08):
So what we're looking at, although thirty thousand has long
been kind of this rule of thumb idea for like
that's a sedan price, it's it's not so much the
case anymore. But the other thing that's changing, uh, will
be the vast array of technology that's enabling cars that
ordinarily wouldn't perform to Uh. Okay, spoiler alert, we'll get there.
(06:30):
We'll get there. The list I'm going I'm getting too
far ahead, all right, So, uh, we start out in
no particular order, which I kind of liked. It's got
with the Ford Mustang. Yeah, we'll just call us number
one on the list, I guess. But but Mustang the
M s r P on that. And I looked this
up back for every one of these. Uh, and of
course it depends on the equipment that you include. So
(06:53):
I'm gonna write I'm gonna stay from uh. You know,
the mustarp is from this number every single time. So
it's from about eight for the coupe and from about
three for the convertible, so you can still get the
convertible under thirty thousand dollars. And we're talking about the
base trim uh, you know, base trim Mustang in this case.
And you have two of engines available under thirty thou dollars.
(07:16):
One is the two point three leader in line four
cylinder Eco boost engine that has about three horse power
and the all important three pound feet of torque for
what we're talking about. Torque is critical, right, And then
you've got the three point seven V six is three
d horse power but two pounds toward. Yeah, and now
the curious thing about this is that both of them
(07:37):
and they don't give a specific speed for this, but
these do come in again on the top ten of
their fastest cars for under thirty thousand. The speed that
you get up to the time I guess you get
up to sixty in both of those cars, you know,
either either engine option is under six seconds. Yeah, that's
moving along pretty good. And I'll be honest, I mean, really,
(07:58):
three hundred to horse power out of a out of
a base engine, you know, a model's base trim. That's
not bad. And there's a bunch of them on the
list that are like that. You don't want to get
to the Camaro and um, some of the other peoples
will talk about is they're they're really really high horse
power out of a relatively low level vehicle. It's not
like their top of the line model. Sure, yeah, not
(08:20):
a flagship. But also you can still get the performance
package on that without breaking the thirty k threshold. Nice,
So that's probably if you go with Yeah, yeah, and
you know, bigger breaks, better tires, shorter ratio for the gears.
But let's go ahead and move on to the next one. Yeah,
(08:41):
what we'll call number two on the list, and number
two would be the Volkswagen g T I. I don't
think This is a surprise really to make this one
would probably make the top ten list for the last
several years, if not, if not least decade. It's always
a performer. And the M S r P is from
twenty five three five on this one around two ten
(09:03):
two horse power. Of course, we're not talking about the
R version here, we're talking about just the uh well,
if you can say just in this case, right, but
any g t I is a good GTI classic signature
exactly right. They were talking about a two lead turbo
charge four cylinder engine about two horse power two or
fifty eight pound feet of torque. And if you get
(09:23):
the six speed manual in you know, in the g
T I you can get from from zero to sixty
and about five point eight seconds. So we've already improved
on our list here. Yeah, five eight pretty good. Yeah,
And then we uh we also know, as you said,
this is a returning champ, so it'll probably be back
next year. Yes, yes, yes, all right, Ben, So let's
move on to number three. And I've got a proposition
(09:46):
for you here. All right, what about skipping numbers three
and going to number four? Oh? Why would we do that?
Is it? Is it insanely fast. It's pretty fast. It's
it's just it might be in now our best interests
for just the flow of the show to put number
three maybe towards the end. Oh I see, maybe maybe
(10:07):
in the last spot. Yeah, let's do that. How about that.
Let's say, well, we'll skip number three, we'll come well,
we'll do number four, we'll come back to number three
as our number one pick. Yeah, all right, And that
way we'll kind of it's like a cliffhanger, cliff car stuff, cliffhangers.
So number three is tb a sort of but we're
not going to make you waiting for another episode, don't.
Don't worry about that. So let's uh, let's move on
(10:28):
to number four and list number four. And this is
a strong performer as well. This is a Chevrolet Camaro,
and of course we're talking about the base Camaro and
still not still it's still is so good. Three three horsepower,
three point six V six engine, Uh, two hundred and
seventy eight pound feet it towards it just short of
(10:48):
two eighty. Yeah, this, I think this is a great one.
It's uh, it's zero to sixty is just under six seconds.
It's five point nine my point. And second, that's quick
and you know what, three horsepower out of a base engine,
you know, a base model engine. That's amazing. That's really
that's really a great offering from Chevrolet for that. And
(11:10):
you know what from you know, from twenty three thousand,
seven hundred five dollars for the coup if you go
to the convertible version, it pushes it just over the
thirty thousand dollar marks, so you're stuck with the coup
if you want to go with the under thirty thousand
mark on this one. But still, man, that's a that's amazing.
That's really cool that they're offering a strong, strong V
six like that for for that price. Now again, Phil
(11:32):
and listeners who are in this market, uh, you know,
ask yourself about your price range because it's it's just
like any other big investment. Sometimes people go a little
over their price range. Yeah. See, we have the sneaking
suspicion that fill us in the market for a car.
And that's why he asked for this topic. So we
talked about this. Yeah, yeah, I think that's what it is.
We get a lot of request from listeners along the way.
(11:53):
In fact, you and I sometimes we gear our podcast
topics towards something like that if we're interested in a vehicle.
So it's it's totally understandable. That's it. That's exactly what
we're here for. And you know what, it's interesting to
everybody else, I think as well in our audience because
you know, you think that you know when you when
you hear numbers like that, when you hear like under
thirty thousand, that seems like that's somewhat affordable these days,
(12:13):
obably enough to buy a car for under thirty thousand
dollars and if you want some you know, some level
of performance for that as well. This is the list.
So let's move on to number five. A Yes, Genesis
Coup three point eight r spec. Yeah, this is that's
a strong performer as well. Yeah, it's right below the
(12:33):
thresholder barely m s r P is five. So with
tax that probably is going to push it over. Well probably,
but you know what we're going with under thirty thousand
m s r P. So so that's it. I mean,
you can't calculate tax and tags and titles and all
that stuff not in this so because that's so expensive. Um,
all right, so this is uh, this three pointed our
(12:54):
spec version UM has, of course, is a V six
engine three hundred and forty eight horsepower and two pound
feet of torque, and it has a six speed manual transmission,
Brembo breaks um limited slift differential. Of course, it has
a sports Seeds performance suspension. Uh, this is a quick
zero to sixty as well, but it's still not the
number one on the list. This one. This one comes
(13:14):
in at five point three seconds. That's fast. Yeah, we're
getting to some numbers that are just out and out
surprising for an under thirty car. It really is. I mean,
that is that is quick for a for zero to
sixties sprint and um, you know, I think and maybe
we'll talk about this a little later too, but I mean, realistically,
anything around eight seconds real world, if you're if you're
(13:37):
I mean, that's that feels fast. If you get down
to six, it feels really fast. When you get below six. Yeah,
this is really moving along. I mean, this is a
this is a sports car for really when you get yeah,
that's a really good way to say it. When you
get sub six seconds for the zero to sixty, it's
the kind of car that if someone doesn't like sports
(14:01):
cars or something, they get uncomfortable driving, you know what
I mean, because you just tap the gas and all
of a sudden, Yeah, you just twitch your foot on
the pedal there in it right, it takes off, all right.
So you know, later we'll talk about real world and
some of the numbers I just mentioned a critical second. Yeah,
why that's important. I mean, that's it's just a safe
zone for most drivers. But let's move on to number
(14:22):
six on our list here, and uh, this is the
Mitsubishi Lancer Rally Art specifically that model, and the prices
again just undertand comes in right, so if if if
money is a pretty big issue, you can save five
bucks over the hun the The the thing about this
(14:45):
is that this is more like the maybe the entry
level in comparison to the Lancer Revolution. Uh this uh
this four doors. Yeah, it's got a turbocharged U four
cylinder motor twenty two thirty seven horsepower two and fifty
three pound feet to torque. Uh and this is sold
(15:07):
only with a six speed dual clutch automated manual. But
the number we're all waiting for, of course, zero to
sixty in five point eight seconds. You know, I've got
to say I like the looks of these Lancer I
see a bunch of them around town. Usually they're they're
lowered and they've got wide tires on them. And some
of them are stands cars, some of them aren't, but
they usually have you know, some body add ons they
(15:29):
have um these little this this model in particular, I
see a lot of this. People like to put these
little wind strip things on it. I don't know if
the factories doing this or if this is something that
kind of the Lancer uh fan boys are doing. And
I say fan boys in a in a loving way.
I don't mean that in a bad way, but respect,
well due respect, you know what I mean. They put
these little baffles on the on the wings. I don't
(15:50):
want to know what better to call them, but it's
like it if they line them the spoilers or you know,
parts of the exterior of the car with these, and
it's almost like it's like a little tiny to user
but it's very very small, and it's almost like something
that would be adhered with a with a like an
adhesive strip. And I see them all over these cars
all the time, and again I don't know if it's
a factory thing or not. I haven't really dug into it.
(16:12):
But it must do something. It must disturb the air
in a way that that proves beneficial to the Lancer
driver for some reason. Because that's the only car that
I've ever seen that on, and I see it often,
so it's it's strange because I also see a lot
of these in heavily modded versions here in Atlanta, and
I don't know if that's exclusive to this region, but
(16:36):
might be, might be, I don't know. And you know,
it just comes down to is it a good car
to drive in the climate that we have, I suppose,
because if you're driving something like that up in uh,
you know, Wisconsin or or Minnesota or Michigan or any
of those, you know, colder climates where you're gonna have
snow and ice to deal with, maybe not the best choice,
I mean, but but who knows. I mean, you find
(16:56):
a little bit of everything everywhere, so again you just
have been to each his own. Uh. And this brings
us to number seven on our list. Yeah, Number seven
is the Ssion f R S. And I I particularly
like this car. I really like a lot because I
see it on the road every day. I see a
bunch of them, different colors, different mods, different different I
(17:19):
guess probably different um uh, trim levels. I suppose too.
We see the t r D versions, we see the
we see the Subaru version of the same car often
as well. I like that as well. Uh, but the
m s r P is again, well, actually know what
the M s RP is reasonable. It's twenty four nine
for this car, So it's a it's a lot more
(17:40):
reasonable and compared to some of the other vehicles. Right,
but what do you get for it? Well, you get
quite a bit. You get a two leader two hundred
horsepower four cylinder engine and has this is this is
maybe not the best part, one hundred and fifty one
pound feet at torque and and that is critical right there.
As we've said, you know, with many of these other
cars that are that are in the five second range, uh,
(18:00):
this one makes it quite a bit slower, six point
four seconds zero to sixty. So it's not the fastest
zer to sixty. But the reason it makes the list
here is because this car is a monster in the corners.
It's really really well handled vehicle. Yeah. Yeah, because the
chassis itself the streets ahead of so many other so
many other groups. Uh. I like the way. It's been
(18:22):
described as almost telepathic handling. Yeah, I guess it has.
It has a better feeling in the turns and the twisties,
you know, And and for that people say, well, this,
this car is kind of a better balance than maybe
just a fast zero to sixty sprint. Sure you can,
you know, you can walk me on the streets, but
as soon as you get into the corners, that's where
the scion FRS stands out right. Yeah, it's the agility
(18:44):
means that it doesn't have to slow down or play
is safe on the corners now here. I'm gonna disqualify
this one, Ben, you're gonna, I thought you might. I
I am. And the reason is because when I looked
at the it's not for the reason you think. I
looked up the M S R P on this car,
and it has been bumped above the thirty thousand threshold.
So that's the reason we're gonna. We're gonna mention it,
(19:05):
but we're not gonna go into any detail. Because it
was on the list, it's now off of the list officially.
Let's consider it honorably Discharged Ladies and Gentlemen, formerly number
eight super Forrester XT. I know what you're thinking then,
is that an suv? Yes, my friends, it's an suv.
They can go from zero to sixty and six point
(19:25):
three seconds. But had the numbers. But guess what when
you get down to the M S r P for
model and I just looked it up. Yeah, what is it?
Thirty three thousand nine dollars. So that does put it
well above the thirty thousand dollar threshold. I don't know
why it was on this list. There must have been
uh some kind of type of pricing discrepancy between they
included on the list. Uh sorry, Subrew that one is
(19:48):
off the list. But um and and sorry Phil, You're
gonna have to look elsewhere other than the Forrester it was,
you know what, I I doubt he was looking for
it for a anyway, how the mighty have fallen? Maybe
they'll redeem themselves. Perhaps they will, maybe they will, ever
say never, maybe a little forest. So number nine on
(20:10):
our list, Number nine the Kia Optima SX Turbo. And well, this,
I gotta be honest, Bend surprised for me. This surprised
me too, you know, because Kia has really been working
assiduously too. I'll be candid to up the quality of
their brand since they first came out in the States,
(20:31):
and the what they have here is deceptively well done. Well,
you know what. I've seen a few of these in
our parking structure. We've seen a few of them on
the road. It's kind of a head turner. It's a
it's a it's a sedan. It's a four door vehicle.
So you know, if you're not into that kind of thing,
you're not really gonna be looking at this. But if
you see a Keya Optima SX turbo on the road,
(20:52):
it's kind of a sharp car. It's a good looking vehicle.
It's it's seven seven is the starting m s r P.
And for that you get two hundred and seventy four
horse power two hundred and sixty nine pound feet of torque.
It's a two leader turbocharged engine. Um again fast zero
to sixty times, relatively fast, I mean, because it is
a bigger vehicle. Six point five seconds, which is respectable
(21:15):
for a four door vehicle. And I guess what I mean, Ben,
just to clarify, is that the Ssion looks like a fast,
racy car. It looks like a sports card. You know, sleep,
blow quick. This is a a Sonan. It's a four
door vehicle. It's it's a little more upright than the
than the sign was. Um, you just don't expect it
out of this one. So it's not I'm not gonna
say it's a sleeper by any means, but it's it's
(21:36):
a relatively quick Sonan. Well, then you're going to love
the next on our list, Scott, and I do mean
that sarcastically, the two thousand fifteen Ford Focus st. Come on,
let's not pick on this one. This is the st version. Yeah, okay,
which is critical, right, that's critical. It's not your it's
not your average Ford Focus. So it's it's around grand.
(21:58):
But you do get you do You do get some
bang for your buck there. You get uh two leer
turbo four cylinder drive trains. So that's two fifty two horsepower,
two hundred seventy pound feed torque um six sheep speed
manual and for all that, you get zero to sixty
in six point six seconds. See okay, now that's a
(22:21):
that's point one second flower than the key that we
just talked. I'm just I'm just busting your chops for
the for the looks like a sports car, so well,
I understand, but you know what this one, Okay, this
is a small, like a utility type vehicle. It's it's
got the hatchback and it's a bit of an economy
looking type car. But but you gotta remember it the
st version. I don't know. I I still like the
(22:42):
looks of this vehicle. I still I still enjoy seeing
he's on the road. Mm hmm. So okay, all right,
are you saying that you are saying that you don't
enjoying the awesome No, no, no, no, no, I'm saying
the others are fine. But but but but I like,
I like the looks of this one. It has the
appearance almost like my my previous vehicle, and it has
a similar shape, similar look to it. You gotta admit,
(23:04):
when you look at that, it looks an awful lot
like my my Honda from two thousand five. It's got
some similarities. And that's and that's not bad. I mean,
the small hashback design. You and I both love that design. Anyways,
so it seems that this is a reasonable choice. And it,
you know, at six point six seconds, that's still not bad.
It's not shabby, not fantastic, but it's not bad. Now
(23:25):
one that is fantastic is the one that we have saved.
We're gonna go back to our on our list here
saved it for number one. Yes, no, we need uh
some drums please, something real dramatic. The fastest zero to
(23:49):
sixty mile prour time for car under thirty thou dollars
goes to Subaru w r X. And I don't think
this will be a surprise to any buddy. Um this
is a is a quick car. Now, maybe the price
will come as a surprise because the price the M
s R P isive. And we're talking about again, the
four door sedan version of this vehicle, not the hatchback version,
(24:11):
which I think a lot of people you know, sorely,
miss I think it was. I want to say it
was when that was the last available here in the States. Elsewhere,
I believe it's still available. But we're talking about the
four door um right around two hundred and sixty eight horsepower,
two hundred and fifty eight pound feet of torque. Um again,
two leader turbocharged four cylinder engine, six speed, manual transmission.
(24:34):
Um Man, what do you want to say about this? Ben?
What else can you say about this? Because it sounds
amazing on the road. I mean, they really do sound incredible.
Subaru at speed sounds incredible with its boxer engine. Yeah,
all always is that they're on I don't know if
I can. Can I say badass on the air. They're
badass cars. We've said it many times. Yeah, Hey, I
(24:55):
always checked just in case. I know you do. Yeah, yeah,
just in case. Maybe maybe things have changed it. But
we haven't even told them the zero sixty time yet.
So so zero sixty time. And this is this is
really important because this is this is head and shoulders
above every other one on the five seconds five seconds.
My second is flat and that's for that's really not
(25:17):
bad at all. And I mean overall, I really like
the package of this vehicle. I mean I love the
w RX, always have. I like the I like the
hatchback version better than the Sedan. I gotta give you that.
But but um, this is a pretty good choice. And
their phil uh is an answer that we that we
hope satisfies you. However, this answer lead us to investigate
(25:40):
something else, and we think it's very important to make
this point. Yeah, can I do one quick thing before
we talk about because because that's an important point we
have to make it really is. But I told you
I was going to give you the list one through
ten just so that the kind of clear things. Yes,
we can do it kind of quick that way, you know,
if somebody who wasn't paying attention, they can they can
pick up here. All right, So there are a couple
(26:00):
of ties here. I want to tell you that there
are actually eight spots out of ten cars, because there
were two ties, one for third and one for fourth place,
because it's you know, exact same seconds. Um of course
we mentioned. Number one was the Subaru w RX at
five seconds. Number two was the Hyundai Genesis at five
point three seconds. Number three is our first tie. That
was the Lancer from Mitsubishi, you know, the um uh
(26:22):
Which one was that the rally our group right for
five point eight seconds and the g t I which
is also five point eight seconds. And number four was
also a tie, and that's the Mustang, both versions which
were UM listed as under six seconds. So I'm gonna
give them that tie with with the next one, which
was the Camaro at five point nine. I'm assuming that
the Mustangs are right around five point nine, so the
(26:44):
Camaro base comes in at five point nine. Number five,
you know, number five was the one that we disqualified,
so you know what, I can cross that right off.
I didn't have the price at that point um. But
that was a Subaru Forester XT at six point three. Uh.
Number six was the Cion F S at six point four.
Number seven was the key to Optima SX turbo at
(27:04):
six point five seconds, and number eight was the Ford
Focus ST at six point six. So again Subaru stand
out there with five seconds zero to sixty times head
and shoulders. Is really really, I mean, truthfully, Ben, is
that zero to sixty something that we should be concerned
about in the real world. You know, once upon a
time it was even though these things were these numbers,
(27:28):
these metrics were derived at racetracks under controlled conditions and
still are and still are. Things have changed a little
bit due to some technological advances, yes, for sure, and
we're talking specifically about launch control. And launch control is
what makes a car really really fast from zero to
(27:49):
sixty UM. And it's helpful in other ways. I understand that,
But but launch control, just in case you don't quite
understand what it means, it's something that's really come about
predominantly in the last five years. It's been developed. You know,
long before that, there there were some trial and air
type you know, situations with this along the way, But
in the last five years there's a lot of vehicles
(28:10):
that have this in place. Now it's cars that you
know are just daily driver type vehicles. And launch control
systems make a car faster zero to sixty than they
are from say five miles per hour to sixty miles
per hour. And that's critical because how it works is
that the electronic system um adjust the the output, the
(28:31):
power output to the wheels and everything. We're talking about
the fuel everything as software. Yeah, it's software that that
allows your vehicle to quickly accelerate from zero to its
you know, intended top speed. If you mash the throttle down, uh,
instead of just spinning the wheels, it's going to smoothly
accelerate you way from the line, you know, with a
(28:52):
with the launch control system turned on, and it's going
to know, it's going to kind of u um anticipate. Yeah,
it's it. It modulates you know that that wheel speed.
And I'm getting tripped up on this here, but what
it doesn't modulates the wheel speed to a point where
there's no slippage. And that's important because if you're just
gonna spin your tires, the phenometer is gonna go up
(29:13):
to sixty quick because your wheels are spending that fast,
but the car is not actually gonna be moving at sixty.
It optimizes the reaction that all the other parts of
the car system have with one another, all the parts
of the drive tree. So the engine is not gonna
fail because of over reving. Uh, the clutch and the
gearbox aren't gonna aren't gonna go all judice on you. Um.
(29:34):
It eliminates it eliminates uh, some of the some of
the air that can happen when you tell all these
different systems to just run. But why okay, if that's
the case, then right, oh, and there's some really interesting
stuff about the history, just real quick. It starts with
you no, um, way back in the day of the trial,
(29:56):
and they're right Formula one right yeah, yeah, yeah, Because
they would would store in information on a disc and
then they would unload it at the pits so engineers
could see what the car was doing. This is pre
telemetry days, right yeah, yeah, it's prey and then later
telemetry allowed it to go over radio. But before they
were just using these discs, and they was, Okay, what
do we have to I guess I wonder if you
(30:17):
could still call that telemetry. And maybe telemetry is the
is just the term used for when it's when it's wireless. Yeah, maybe,
I don't know. I'm not sure how that all works out,
because I know, for a while I've seen race car
driver or race car teams. Rather when the car pulls
and the pits, they would they would plug into the vehicle.
They would would use a chord like you know what
you plug in a camera or whatever to your computer,
(30:38):
you would you would plug in a chord and then
that would then communicate with the laptop that they had.
But I don't think they even need that chord anymore.
I think it's all wireless at this point. I think
telemetry is more check me up if I'm wrong on
this listeners, more an umbrella term for that kind of
wireless stuff. So even that early day stuff might have
been called telemetry, but they didn't know what to call
it at that point. Yeah, yeah, maybe what's the etymology
(31:00):
of the term, but they but it sounds like it
comes from the Greek. But the that's neither here nor
there it's not really important. No, no, not for this stuff,
for this way, but for but this is the question, right, Uh,
what about this optimization makes the zero to sixty number deceptive?
(31:21):
What what makes the five to sixty number different? Alright, Well,
so here the five to sixty is more of a
real world situation versus the zero to sixty because it's
very rare when you are at a dead stop and
you've got the revs really high and then you just
dump the collection and try to take off and get
up to sixty as quickly as you can't agree, It
really doesn't happen all that often, and only in you
(31:42):
know situation where you're you know, maybe you're at a
stop light and you want to show off to somebody. Fine,
I understand that, but it happens. You shouldn't do it, probably,
but but anyways, that happens, or you're at an actual
race track and you wanted to you wanted to perform
that way, or um, you know again, just you know,
on your own, you're you're out in a parking lot
somewhere and you just want to see what your car does.
That's another situation, but it rarely, rarely happens when you
(32:04):
want to do a fast zero to sixty sprint without
spinning the tires, you know, just try to get a
fastest speed. That really doesn't happen. What normally happens is
and even if you're unconsciously doing this, the car is
actually rolling a little bit when you accelerate. Typically, like
let's say that you're on an on ramp and you
just come around a right hand turn to enter the
(32:27):
on ramp that you know, then circles onto the highway.
You're you're usually going pretty slow. I mean, I'm gonna say, Okay,
five is what they give normally, you know, these tests
are doing five to five to sixty, which ends up
being slower than zero to sixty. But um, let's say
that you're going ten miles an hour and you roll
around the corner, maybe ten to twelve miles. Now you
roll around the corner and then you start to pick
up speed on that ramp, your car is gonna be
(32:48):
slower getting from five miles per hour let's say ten
up to sixty. Then it would be from zero to sixty.
It's far more common for you to be rolling already
and then and then need that acceleration than it is
to be at a dead stop and need to go immediately,
not top speed, but you know, sixty or so. It's
you know, some of these uh, these magazines have been
(33:09):
doing this for years and years, and if you go
back and look at Road and Track, Car and Driver,
any of those magazines, look at their comparison tests, or
you know, just their the reviews of cars, they will
not only do a zero to sixty run and a
quarter mile run and all the standard stuff that they
normally do, they will also do a five to sixty.
They will also do sometimes a thirty to fifty, a
fifty to seventy um. So that's all important and they
realize that, you know, that's important because that like fifty
(33:31):
seventy would be passing, and it's important to know that
if your car is capable of passing that that semi
that's ahead of you, or it's important to know that
you know, when you're merging on the highway, which is
where the five to sixty comes in. Really that five
to sixty number is critical because that really gives you
kind of the real world idea of what your vehicle
is gonna do in traffic. So when you're in downtown,
(33:52):
you know merging situations. How much confidence do you have
in your car that you can get up to speed quickly,
you can get into traffic, you can maneuver at the
way you need to, And sixty is being I guess
generous in this case because typically you need to go
up to seventy's. Like, you know, it seems like a
lot of people are going a lot faster now on
the main highways, even through a downtown, a busy downtown
like what we have in Atlanta. Well, what I like
(34:14):
to do is kind of take the whenever. This is
the approach I take. When I'm getting on the Interstate.
I do the the Sunday driver and kind of like
putter down the ramp and then right when I get
to where it's about to connect to the Interstate, then
I pull off to the side, come to a full stop,
and then I I check a five hour energy drink,
(34:37):
and then I just slam on the gas, you know,
so I can get that zero to sixty. That's a
that's a great thing to do. Yeah, I'm sure it
doesn't disrupt traffic in any way or anything. No, the
police love me. There's nothing illegal about that, now that
I think about it, really um I I honestly, of course, guys,
I don't do things like that. UM I kind of
(34:59):
picture you're doing that maybe once or twice. Just why
why that's ridiculous to see what happens. You know. I
used to, Uh, I used to until my girlfriend got
very upset with me about it. I used to be
one of those people who always stopped to check on
motorists because we have a thing here in Atlanta called
hero Where where you know, it's a it's a roadside
(35:21):
assistance vehicle that travels around in the city. Free service,
a free service, free to motorists. It's not you know,
you're paying for it through taxes and all that, but
still it's a free service. And you know, it's a
big vehicle, looks like a paramatics fan or something. Yeah,
like a yellow ambulance and uh, and it's it's helpful
to people. But before that, I used to always stop
because you know, you never know what kind of situation
(35:44):
of persons in and oftentimes it's just something very small
like oftentimes they might have just run out of gas,
you got a flat but they don't have the stuff
to fix it, which happens more than it should. Cards
overheating something like that, whatever the situation, or maybe they
don't understand what's going on, and maybe you do. You
know that you can. You can just tell them it's
(36:06):
not really a big deal. If you know the engine
light is on but not flashing, well, you know you
can go the extra mile and get to the gas
station and have it checked out if you want. Yeah.
There have also been some other times for us said oh, yeah, no,
this is we have to get a belt. I'll drive
you to the gas station. And sir, I gotta say, Ben,
(36:26):
I mean, that's nice that you've stopped and help people out.
I've done that in the past, and recently I've done
it less and less and I don't like to admit that,
but I have done it less and less than The
reason is that, quite frankly, you just hear some of
the bad stuff that happens, right, You hear people making
um using uh the I using the appearance of a
stranded motorist to as a as a trap for crime. Yeah,
(36:50):
and you know that. Okay, again, this is really tough
to to put into words, I guess to to uh
to to differentiate between when you should and when you
shouldn't do that. But they're times when I feel confident that, yeah,
this is this is something that I can help this
person out with, you know, or or I can pull
over and be safe in this situation. Other times I
look and I say, no way, I'm not I'm not
(37:10):
getting involved in that at all. Um, it's really tough
to figure out which is which. But you have to
make just a gut gut decision almost right away too,
because you're passing it, you know, six or seventy miles
an hour. You have to decide quickly what you're gonna do. Yeah,
And that that's another thing too. It's like the time
investment of just of stopping going just talking about going
(37:31):
to a full stop on the side of the highways
from what reminded me about And that's that's just such
a that's such a tangent, you know. And also it
changed a lot when I was living in a city
because where I you know, a lot of my formative
years were spent in more rural environment, you know, and
then a suburban environment. So you see someone broken down,
(37:51):
and it may be someone that you're familiar with in town.
You don't know them, but you you've seen them over
the last ten years. Yeah, or it's just a road
where you might be the only other car coming for
the next four hours, and so I, you know, I
want to stop. And you know, I totally understand what
you're saying. And it's and it's getting more and more
difficult to to be a good citizen in that situation.
(38:13):
But you're right, you're right that Hero program and I
think that's in place in a lot of cities, a
lot of major cities. Now, Um, it's just a quick
cell phone call away, and there's signs on the side
of the road that that indicate you know what number
to call in your city to do that. But it's
a great service. And again, if you need a gallon
of gas, you need an air you know, Empire changed
some air entire whatever. Uh, they're right there for you. Now,
(38:33):
don't rely on them. They're not there to give you
free gas. They're there to help people who need help.
I wonder how often that happens. But you know, it
seems like a lot of trouble to go through to
get one gallon. Yes, Scott, I was gonna say, not
even me, man, even I wouldn't do that. But uh,
but sorry, this sounds like we're virgin and listen to
a different show at this point, but part of the
(38:54):
tangents you, guys, Phil, we hope that we answer your question.
We'd like to hear what car would be your favorite
of the of the ones we named to drive, uh,
not counting the disqualified one. Yeah, and uh. And also
keep in mind the thirty price that was critical for
Phil and his email and you know, and when you
(39:14):
when you nudge just a little bit above that, it's
a different ballgame. There's a few, you know, just below
the thirty five threshold. You get them heavy hitters. Yeah,
but then yeah, well then you're gonna spend thirty five.
You might supposed spend forty, Why not? You know you'd
finance that right, right, And if you're gonna go fifty,
let's just make it even, Just make it even even
round seventy because you're gonna have it for a while
(39:35):
and you want what's round about seventy by the way,
round about seven? Gosh. But all right, so we're gonna
head out. If you would like to contact us and
see some stories that don't make it onto the air,
check out our Facebook and our Twitter pages. We're car stuff.
Hs of you uh yeah, please give him a look.
We're we're kind of funny and you'll you'll see some
(39:57):
uh see some recent travels on there too, if you
If you visit the page and uh, let's see what else,
you can check out every episode that we've ever ever
done on our website, Car stuff Show dot com. You
can also talk to us directly, take a page from
Phil's book, if you have a suggestion, you have some feedback,
you have a picture of a cool car, or you
(40:18):
just want to say, hey, what's going on? Just about anything? Yeah,
just about anything, I guess no bomb making details or whatever.
Legal disclaimer you usually here, right, yeah, with with limitation,
with limitations, I'm fine with limericks. I don't know if
they're Scott's favorite. Okay, yeah, I just use good good sense,
good sense, good common sense in your limerick judgment. No, no,
(40:40):
I mean overall. Well. Yeah, if you want to send
us an email, we'd love to hear from you. Our
address is hard stuff at how stuff Work dot com.
For more on this and thousands of other topics, how
Stuff Works dot com. Let us know what you think.
Send an email to pass at House Awards dot com. Mmmmmmm,
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car Stuff from house stuff works dot com. I'm welcome
to car Stuff. I'm Scott and I am Ben. As always,
we are here with no Gone. In sixty seconds, Brown like, yeah,
he's a In addition to being our super producer, he
(00:24):
is a man of many names. On and sixty said,
that's a perfect nat name for today's episode. It's not
the worst film either, No, it's actually and the original
and the remain I think a lot of people do
not like the remake, but each his own. Again, I
think I like both. I like both what they are,
you know what I mean, I don't compare them that well.
(00:45):
That often dramatically different feel too. Yeah, yeah, I gotta say,
you know what, just now that we're talking about all this,
I think I mean, once I start watching even a
minute clip of the original, I feel like I gotta
watch more of the original. But the same is not
true of the remake. So if I watch a minute
of it or so, I don't feel like I have
(01:06):
to watch more of that one. And maybe that says
something I don't know, And that does say something. We'll
also just given the just given the age of the original.
When did that come out? Original man? Early seventies, I think, yeah, yeah,
even like even in the early seventies, you know, the
the use of uh editing, right editing techniques and the
(01:27):
use of music were so very different in comparison to
the modern news, you know, and knowing what we know
about that film and that it was the directors of
the driving and all the crashes, some of the horrific
things that he went through to make that happen. Yeah,
he's a wild man. Man, we're way off tracking away
from from a nickname man. Yeah, we went, We went
from zero to sixty real quick on those tangents. But
(01:50):
this brings us to today's episode, which, like many of
our favorite topics, was inspired by a listener male and
odd least pacific listener mail. As you pointed out earlier today, Right,
we're talking about this from you know, it's a listener
mail that we read in I think it was in
a Nuts and Bolts episode recently, and we said that
we get to this topic and here we are. It
(02:12):
was from philth C and Phil C wrote in um.
Originally he wrote in about seeing a Cadillac E L
R out on the street. So the electric Cadillac, and
I had mentioned, you know, that he saw one and
wasn't I think we laughed about this even the first time.
I also said, yeah, just can I do the quote?
Of course I didn't know people are so inclined to
throw money away. Ah, yes, yeah, because we're laughing about
(02:32):
how it basically it's a Chevy Vault wrapped in Cadillac
skin with a lot of bells and whistles that the
Vault doesn't have. I understand, but uh, yeah, he's He's right.
It's very very expensive car and it's really small. When
you see it, it's it's kind of beautiful. It is
a beautiful car though. So his topic suggestion actually comes
from a PS. To that note, he wrote, PS love
(02:55):
the top ten lists? How about an episode on the
top ten fastest zero to sixty new cars under thirty
dollars under thirty thousand dollars. And that's the catch right there,
that's the rub. Yeah, that's that's the part that got
got our interest because it makes it way more complicated.
If you have a little more complicated, more interesting is
(03:17):
a better word, Scott, Because if you have all of
the theoretical money in the world, then it's not very
difficult to find cars with just obscene zero to sixty times,
you know, but this puts it a little bit more
in the bounds of realism for quite a few people. Yeah.
(03:38):
In fact, it brings it down below the average price
of a sedan, I believe, and you know when we
we uh limit this to under thirty dollars and and
honestly to be supported, I was kind of surprised by
the list. There's a lot of really nice cars on
the under thirty thousand lists that are um, you know,
quick in the zero to sixty sprint. And I think
that I don't know, you want to do this before
(04:00):
under after, Probably let's do it after where we talk
about maybe the reasons why is zero to sixty isn't
maybe the measurement that you really want to use to
measure cars performance. UM, there's another one that might be
a better gauge of that if you want, if you
want kind of like a real world gauge of performance. UM.
And we can also talk about you know why that's important,
(04:20):
you know, like why, um, why manufacturers are are slanting
it this way? So zero to sixties long been a
measurement that we've used to measure cars performance and it
comes from you know, very Um, I don't know, I
guess the best way to put it would be like
that secluded but but closed test track situations where they're
(04:41):
very much in control of the situation, conditions, have very
control conditions with with drivers that are highly skilled. Um,
you know what, we're probably getting too much into the
weeds here on this already. So this list that we're
gonna read comes from a site because they've already compiled
the vehicles. We you and I don't get to get
out in drive cars. We don't view cars, we don't
sell cars or anything like that. So we get to, uh,
(05:04):
you know, kind of go through these lists and kind
of have fun with what they report on. And in
this case they actually had had done this list for us.
Really it's at the kind of the fastest cars under
thirty dollars and it's from autobitel dot com and it
was written in so it's it's current. All these models
will be models. The thing is, the list isn't a
(05:25):
you know, ten through one, you know, ten count down
to the fastest veeple or something. No, exactly, but I
have I've taken the time to go through and do
that so that um I can put them in one
through ten order later, maybe after we read through all these.
So we'll just go through the list and you hear
some some quick ones, and they'll get faster, and we'll
get a little slower, a little faster, a little slower,
(05:45):
and then we'll go back at the end and tell
you which one was the fastest, just in case you
weren't paying attention to the top one. Phil, All right,
well let's go ahead and start off. As we're getting
into this, we'll go ahead and say that this this
year brings us to some very interesting tipping points in
automotive stuff. Overall, the price of the sedan is continually increased, right,
(06:08):
So what we're looking at, although thirty thousand has long
been kind of this rule of thumb idea for like
that's a sedan price, it's it's not so much the
case anymore. But the other thing that's changing, uh, will
be the vast array of technology that's enabling cars that
ordinarily wouldn't perform to Uh. Okay, spoiler alert, we'll get there.
(06:30):
We'll get there. The list I'm going I'm getting too
far ahead, all right, So, uh, we start out in
no particular order, which I kind of liked. It's got
with the Ford Mustang. Yeah, we'll just call us number
one on the list, I guess. But but Mustang the
M s r P on that. And I looked this
up back for every one of these. Uh, and of
course it depends on the equipment that you include. So
(06:53):
I'm gonna write I'm gonna stay from uh. You know,
the mustarp is from this number every single time. So
it's from about eight for the coupe and from about
three for the convertible, so you can still get the
convertible under thirty thousand dollars. And we're talking about the
base trim uh, you know, base trim Mustang in this case.
And you have two of engines available under thirty thou dollars.
(07:16):
One is the two point three leader in line four
cylinder Eco boost engine that has about three horse power
and the all important three pound feet of torque for
what we're talking about. Torque is critical, right, And then
you've got the three point seven V six is three
d horse power but two pounds toward. Yeah, and now
the curious thing about this is that both of them
(07:37):
and they don't give a specific speed for this, but
these do come in again on the top ten of
their fastest cars for under thirty thousand. The speed that
you get up to the time I guess you get
up to sixty in both of those cars, you know,
either either engine option is under six seconds. Yeah, that's
moving along pretty good. And I'll be honest, I mean, really,
(07:58):
three hundred to horse power out of a out of
a base engine, you know, a model's base trim. That's
not bad. And there's a bunch of them on the
list that are like that. You don't want to get
to the Camaro and um, some of the other peoples
will talk about is they're they're really really high horse
power out of a relatively low level vehicle. It's not
like their top of the line model. Sure, yeah, not
(08:20):
a flagship. But also you can still get the performance
package on that without breaking the thirty k threshold. Nice,
So that's probably if you go with Yeah, yeah, and
you know, bigger breaks, better tires, shorter ratio for the gears.
But let's go ahead and move on to the next one. Yeah,
(08:41):
what we'll call number two on the list, and number
two would be the Volkswagen g T I. I don't
think This is a surprise really to make this one
would probably make the top ten list for the last
several years, if not, if not least decade. It's always
a performer. And the M S r P is from
twenty five three five on this one around two ten
(09:03):
two horse power. Of course, we're not talking about the
R version here, we're talking about just the uh well,
if you can say just in this case, right, but
any g t I is a good GTI classic signature
exactly right. They were talking about a two lead turbo
charge four cylinder engine about two horse power two or
fifty eight pound feet of torque. And if you get
(09:23):
the six speed manual in you know, in the g
T I you can get from from zero to sixty
and about five point eight seconds. So we've already improved
on our list here. Yeah, five eight pretty good. Yeah,
And then we uh we also know, as you said,
this is a returning champ, so it'll probably be back
next year. Yes, yes, yes, all right, Ben, So let's
move on to number three. And I've got a proposition
(09:46):
for you here. All right, what about skipping numbers three
and going to number four? Oh? Why would we do that?
Is it? Is it insanely fast. It's pretty fast. It's
it's just it might be in now our best interests
for just the flow of the show to put number
three maybe towards the end. Oh I see, maybe maybe
(10:07):
in the last spot. Yeah, let's do that. How about that.
Let's say, well, we'll skip number three, we'll come well,
we'll do number four, we'll come back to number three
as our number one pick. Yeah, all right, And that
way we'll kind of it's like a cliffhanger, cliff car stuff, cliffhangers.
So number three is tb a sort of but we're
not going to make you waiting for another episode, don't.
Don't worry about that. So let's uh, let's move on
(10:28):
to number four and list number four. And this is
a strong performer as well. This is a Chevrolet Camaro,
and of course we're talking about the base Camaro and
still not still it's still is so good. Three three horsepower,
three point six V six engine, Uh, two hundred and
seventy eight pound feet it towards it just short of
(10:48):
two eighty. Yeah, this, I think this is a great one.
It's uh, it's zero to sixty is just under six seconds.
It's five point nine my point. And second, that's quick
and you know what, three horsepower out of a base engine,
you know, a base model engine. That's amazing. That's really
that's really a great offering from Chevrolet for that. And
(11:10):
you know what from you know, from twenty three thousand,
seven hundred five dollars for the coup if you go
to the convertible version, it pushes it just over the
thirty thousand dollar marks, so you're stuck with the coup
if you want to go with the under thirty thousand
mark on this one. But still, man, that's a that's amazing.
That's really cool that they're offering a strong, strong V
six like that for for that price. Now again, Phil
(11:32):
and listeners who are in this market, uh, you know,
ask yourself about your price range because it's it's just
like any other big investment. Sometimes people go a little
over their price range. Yeah. See, we have the sneaking
suspicion that fill us in the market for a car.
And that's why he asked for this topic. So we
talked about this. Yeah, yeah, I think that's what it is.
We get a lot of request from listeners along the way.
(11:53):
In fact, you and I sometimes we gear our podcast
topics towards something like that if we're interested in a vehicle.
So it's it's totally understandable. That's it. That's exactly what
we're here for. And you know what, it's interesting to
everybody else, I think as well in our audience because
you know, you think that you know when you when
you hear numbers like that, when you hear like under
thirty thousand, that seems like that's somewhat affordable these days,
(12:13):
obably enough to buy a car for under thirty thousand
dollars and if you want some you know, some level
of performance for that as well. This is the list.
So let's move on to number five. A Yes, Genesis
Coup three point eight r spec. Yeah, this is that's
a strong performer as well. Yeah, it's right below the
(12:33):
thresholder barely m s r P is five. So with
tax that probably is going to push it over. Well probably,
but you know what we're going with under thirty thousand
m s r P. So so that's it. I mean,
you can't calculate tax and tags and titles and all
that stuff not in this so because that's so expensive. Um,
all right, so this is uh, this three pointed our
(12:54):
spec version UM has, of course, is a V six
engine three hundred and forty eight horsepower and two pound
feet of torque, and it has a six speed manual transmission,
Brembo breaks um limited slift differential. Of course, it has
a sports Seeds performance suspension. Uh, this is a quick
zero to sixty as well, but it's still not the
number one on the list. This one. This one comes
(13:14):
in at five point three seconds. That's fast. Yeah, we're
getting to some numbers that are just out and out
surprising for an under thirty car. It really is. I mean,
that is that is quick for a for zero to
sixties sprint and um, you know, I think and maybe
we'll talk about this a little later too, but I mean, realistically,
anything around eight seconds real world, if you're if you're
(13:37):
I mean, that's that feels fast. If you get down
to six, it feels really fast. When you get below six. Yeah,
this is really moving along. I mean, this is a
this is a sports car for really when you get yeah,
that's a really good way to say it. When you
get sub six seconds for the zero to sixty, it's
the kind of car that if someone doesn't like sports
(14:01):
cars or something, they get uncomfortable driving, you know what
I mean, because you just tap the gas and all
of a sudden, Yeah, you just twitch your foot on
the pedal there in it right, it takes off, all right.
So you know, later we'll talk about real world and
some of the numbers I just mentioned a critical second. Yeah,
why that's important. I mean, that's it's just a safe
zone for most drivers. But let's move on to number
(14:22):
six on our list here, and uh, this is the
Mitsubishi Lancer Rally Art specifically that model, and the prices
again just undertand comes in right, so if if if
money is a pretty big issue, you can save five
bucks over the hun the The the thing about this
(14:45):
is that this is more like the maybe the entry
level in comparison to the Lancer Revolution. Uh this uh
this four doors. Yeah, it's got a turbocharged U four
cylinder motor twenty two thirty seven horsepower two and fifty
three pound feet to torque. Uh and this is sold
(15:07):
only with a six speed dual clutch automated manual. But
the number we're all waiting for, of course, zero to
sixty in five point eight seconds. You know, I've got
to say I like the looks of these Lancer I
see a bunch of them around town. Usually they're they're
lowered and they've got wide tires on them. And some
of them are stands cars, some of them aren't, but
they usually have you know, some body add ons they
(15:29):
have um these little this this model in particular, I
see a lot of this. People like to put these
little wind strip things on it. I don't know if
the factories doing this or if this is something that
kind of the Lancer uh fan boys are doing. And
I say fan boys in a in a loving way.
I don't mean that in a bad way, but respect,
well due respect, you know what I mean. They put
these little baffles on the on the wings. I don't
(15:50):
want to know what better to call them, but it's
like it if they line them the spoilers or you know,
parts of the exterior of the car with these, and
it's almost like it's like a little tiny to user
but it's very very small, and it's almost like something
that would be adhered with a with a like an
adhesive strip. And I see them all over these cars
all the time, and again I don't know if it's
a factory thing or not. I haven't really dug into it.
(16:12):
But it must do something. It must disturb the air
in a way that that proves beneficial to the Lancer
driver for some reason. Because that's the only car that
I've ever seen that on, and I see it often,
so it's it's strange because I also see a lot
of these in heavily modded versions here in Atlanta, and
I don't know if that's exclusive to this region, but
(16:36):
might be, might be, I don't know. And you know,
it just comes down to is it a good car
to drive in the climate that we have, I suppose,
because if you're driving something like that up in uh,
you know, Wisconsin or or Minnesota or Michigan or any
of those, you know, colder climates where you're gonna have
snow and ice to deal with, maybe not the best choice,
I mean, but but who knows. I mean, you find
(16:56):
a little bit of everything everywhere, so again you just
have been to each his own. Uh. And this brings
us to number seven on our list. Yeah, Number seven
is the Ssion f R S. And I I particularly
like this car. I really like a lot because I
see it on the road every day. I see a
bunch of them, different colors, different mods, different different I
(17:19):
guess probably different um uh, trim levels. I suppose too.
We see the t r D versions, we see the
we see the Subaru version of the same car often
as well. I like that as well. Uh, but the
m s r P is again, well, actually know what
the M s RP is reasonable. It's twenty four nine
for this car, So it's a it's a lot more
(17:40):
reasonable and compared to some of the other vehicles. Right,
but what do you get for it? Well, you get
quite a bit. You get a two leader two hundred
horsepower four cylinder engine and has this is this is
maybe not the best part, one hundred and fifty one
pound feet at torque and and that is critical right there.
As we've said, you know, with many of these other
cars that are that are in the five second range, uh,
(18:00):
this one makes it quite a bit slower, six point
four seconds zero to sixty. So it's not the fastest
zer to sixty. But the reason it makes the list
here is because this car is a monster in the corners.
It's really really well handled vehicle. Yeah. Yeah, because the
chassis itself the streets ahead of so many other so
many other groups. Uh. I like the way. It's been
(18:22):
described as almost telepathic handling. Yeah, I guess it has.
It has a better feeling in the turns and the twisties,
you know, And and for that people say, well, this,
this car is kind of a better balance than maybe
just a fast zero to sixty sprint. Sure you can,
you know, you can walk me on the streets, but
as soon as you get into the corners, that's where
the scion FRS stands out right. Yeah, it's the agility
(18:44):
means that it doesn't have to slow down or play
is safe on the corners now here. I'm gonna disqualify
this one, Ben, you're gonna, I thought you might. I
I am. And the reason is because when I looked
at the it's not for the reason you think. I
looked up the M S R P on this car,
and it has been bumped above the thirty thousand threshold.
So that's the reason we're gonna. We're gonna mention it,
(19:05):
but we're not gonna go into any detail. Because it
was on the list, it's now off of the list officially.
Let's consider it honorably Discharged Ladies and Gentlemen, formerly number
eight super Forrester XT. I know what you're thinking then,
is that an suv? Yes, my friends, it's an suv.
They can go from zero to sixty and six point
(19:25):
three seconds. But had the numbers. But guess what when
you get down to the M S r P for
model and I just looked it up. Yeah, what is it?
Thirty three thousand nine dollars. So that does put it
well above the thirty thousand dollar threshold. I don't know
why it was on this list. There must have been
uh some kind of type of pricing discrepancy between they
included on the list. Uh sorry, Subrew that one is
(19:48):
off the list. But um and and sorry Phil, You're
gonna have to look elsewhere other than the Forrester it was,
you know what, I I doubt he was looking for
it for a anyway, how the mighty have fallen? Maybe
they'll redeem themselves. Perhaps they will, maybe they will, ever
say never, maybe a little forest. So number nine on
(20:10):
our list, Number nine the Kia Optima SX Turbo. And well, this,
I gotta be honest, Bend surprised for me. This surprised
me too, you know, because Kia has really been working
assiduously too. I'll be candid to up the quality of
their brand since they first came out in the States,
(20:31):
and the what they have here is deceptively well done. Well,
you know what. I've seen a few of these in
our parking structure. We've seen a few of them on
the road. It's kind of a head turner. It's a
it's a it's a sedan. It's a four door vehicle.
So you know, if you're not into that kind of thing,
you're not really gonna be looking at this. But if
you see a Keya Optima SX turbo on the road,
(20:52):
it's kind of a sharp car. It's a good looking vehicle.
It's it's seven seven is the starting m s r P.
And for that you get two hundred and seventy four
horse power two hundred and sixty nine pound feet of torque.
It's a two leader turbocharged engine. Um again fast zero
to sixty times, relatively fast, I mean, because it is
a bigger vehicle. Six point five seconds, which is respectable
(21:15):
for a four door vehicle. And I guess what I mean, Ben,
just to clarify, is that the Ssion looks like a fast,
racy car. It looks like a sports card. You know, sleep,
blow quick. This is a a Sonan. It's a four
door vehicle. It's it's a little more upright than the
than the sign was. Um, you just don't expect it
out of this one. So it's not I'm not gonna
say it's a sleeper by any means, but it's it's
(21:36):
a relatively quick Sonan. Well, then you're going to love
the next on our list, Scott, and I do mean
that sarcastically, the two thousand fifteen Ford Focus st. Come on,
let's not pick on this one. This is the st version. Yeah, okay,
which is critical, right, that's critical. It's not your it's
not your average Ford Focus. So it's it's around grand.
(21:58):
But you do get you do You do get some
bang for your buck there. You get uh two leer
turbo four cylinder drive trains. So that's two fifty two horsepower,
two hundred seventy pound feed torque um six sheep speed
manual and for all that, you get zero to sixty
in six point six seconds. See okay, now that's a
(22:21):
that's point one second flower than the key that we
just talked. I'm just I'm just busting your chops for
the for the looks like a sports car, so well,
I understand, but you know what this one, Okay, this
is a small, like a utility type vehicle. It's it's
got the hatchback and it's a bit of an economy
looking type car. But but you gotta remember it the
st version. I don't know. I I still like the
(22:42):
looks of this vehicle. I still I still enjoy seeing
he's on the road. Mm hmm. So okay, all right,
are you saying that you are saying that you don't
enjoying the awesome No, no, no, no, no, I'm saying
the others are fine. But but but but I like,
I like the looks of this one. It has the
appearance almost like my my previous vehicle, and it has
a similar shape, similar look to it. You gotta admit,
(23:04):
when you look at that, it looks an awful lot
like my my Honda from two thousand five. It's got
some similarities. And that's and that's not bad. I mean,
the small hashback design. You and I both love that design. Anyways,
so it seems that this is a reasonable choice. And it,
you know, at six point six seconds, that's still not bad.
It's not shabby, not fantastic, but it's not bad. Now
(23:25):
one that is fantastic is the one that we have saved.
We're gonna go back to our on our list here
saved it for number one. Yes, no, we need uh
some drums please, something real dramatic. The fastest zero to
(23:49):
sixty mile prour time for car under thirty thou dollars
goes to Subaru w r X. And I don't think
this will be a surprise to any buddy. Um this
is a is a quick car. Now, maybe the price
will come as a surprise because the price the M
s R P isive. And we're talking about again, the
four door sedan version of this vehicle, not the hatchback version,
(24:11):
which I think a lot of people you know, sorely,
miss I think it was. I want to say it
was when that was the last available here in the States. Elsewhere,
I believe it's still available. But we're talking about the
four door um right around two hundred and sixty eight horsepower,
two hundred and fifty eight pound feet of torque. Um again,
two leader turbocharged four cylinder engine, six speed, manual transmission.
(24:34):
Um Man, what do you want to say about this? Ben?
What else can you say about this? Because it sounds
amazing on the road. I mean, they really do sound incredible.
Subaru at speed sounds incredible with its boxer engine. Yeah,
all always is that they're on I don't know if
I can. Can I say badass on the air. They're
badass cars. We've said it many times. Yeah, Hey, I
(24:55):
always checked just in case. I know you do. Yeah, yeah,
just in case. Maybe maybe things have changed it. But
we haven't even told them the zero sixty time yet.
So so zero sixty time. And this is this is
really important because this is this is head and shoulders
above every other one on the five seconds five seconds.
My second is flat and that's for that's really not
(25:17):
bad at all. And I mean overall, I really like
the package of this vehicle. I mean I love the
w RX, always have. I like the I like the
hatchback version better than the Sedan. I gotta give you that.
But but um, this is a pretty good choice. And
their phil uh is an answer that we that we
hope satisfies you. However, this answer lead us to investigate
(25:40):
something else, and we think it's very important to make
this point. Yeah, can I do one quick thing before
we talk about because because that's an important point we
have to make it really is. But I told you
I was going to give you the list one through
ten just so that the kind of clear things. Yes,
we can do it kind of quick that way, you know,
if somebody who wasn't paying attention, they can they can
pick up here. All right, So there are a couple
(26:00):
of ties here. I want to tell you that there
are actually eight spots out of ten cars, because there
were two ties, one for third and one for fourth place,
because it's you know, exact same seconds. Um of course
we mentioned. Number one was the Subaru w RX at
five seconds. Number two was the Hyundai Genesis at five
point three seconds. Number three is our first tie. That
was the Lancer from Mitsubishi, you know, the um uh
(26:22):
Which one was that the rally our group right for
five point eight seconds and the g t I which
is also five point eight seconds. And number four was
also a tie, and that's the Mustang, both versions which
were UM listed as under six seconds. So I'm gonna
give them that tie with with the next one, which
was the Camaro at five point nine. I'm assuming that
the Mustangs are right around five point nine, so the
(26:44):
Camaro base comes in at five point nine. Number five,
you know, number five was the one that we disqualified,
so you know what, I can cross that right off.
I didn't have the price at that point um. But
that was a Subaru Forester XT at six point three. Uh.
Number six was the Cion F S at six point four.
Number seven was the key to Optima SX turbo at
(27:04):
six point five seconds, and number eight was the Ford
Focus ST at six point six. So again Subaru stand
out there with five seconds zero to sixty times head
and shoulders. Is really really, I mean, truthfully, Ben, is
that zero to sixty something that we should be concerned
about in the real world. You know, once upon a
time it was even though these things were these numbers,
(27:28):
these metrics were derived at racetracks under controlled conditions and
still are and still are. Things have changed a little
bit due to some technological advances, yes, for sure, and
we're talking specifically about launch control. And launch control is
what makes a car really really fast from zero to
(27:49):
sixty UM. And it's helpful in other ways. I understand that,
But but launch control, just in case you don't quite
understand what it means, it's something that's really come about
predominantly in the last five years. It's been developed. You know,
long before that, there there were some trial and air
type you know, situations with this along the way, But
in the last five years there's a lot of vehicles
(28:10):
that have this in place. Now it's cars that you
know are just daily driver type vehicles. And launch control
systems make a car faster zero to sixty than they
are from say five miles per hour to sixty miles
per hour. And that's critical because how it works is
that the electronic system um adjust the the output, the
(28:31):
power output to the wheels and everything. We're talking about
the fuel everything as software. Yeah, it's software that that
allows your vehicle to quickly accelerate from zero to its
you know, intended top speed. If you mash the throttle down, uh,
instead of just spinning the wheels, it's going to smoothly
accelerate you way from the line, you know, with a
(28:52):
with the launch control system turned on, and it's going
to know, it's going to kind of u um anticipate. Yeah,
it's it. It modulates you know that that wheel speed.
And I'm getting tripped up on this here, but what
it doesn't modulates the wheel speed to a point where
there's no slippage. And that's important because if you're just
gonna spin your tires, the phenometer is gonna go up
(29:13):
to sixty quick because your wheels are spending that fast,
but the car is not actually gonna be moving at sixty.
It optimizes the reaction that all the other parts of
the car system have with one another, all the parts
of the drive tree. So the engine is not gonna
fail because of over reving. Uh, the clutch and the
gearbox aren't gonna aren't gonna go all judice on you. Um.
(29:34):
It eliminates it eliminates uh, some of the some of
the air that can happen when you tell all these
different systems to just run. But why okay, if that's
the case, then right, oh, and there's some really interesting
stuff about the history, just real quick. It starts with
you no, um, way back in the day of the trial,
(29:56):
and they're right Formula one right yeah, yeah, yeah, Because
they would would store in information on a disc and
then they would unload it at the pits so engineers
could see what the car was doing. This is pre
telemetry days, right yeah, yeah, it's prey and then later
telemetry allowed it to go over radio. But before they
were just using these discs, and they was, Okay, what
do we have to I guess I wonder if you
(30:17):
could still call that telemetry. And maybe telemetry is the
is just the term used for when it's when it's wireless. Yeah, maybe,
I don't know. I'm not sure how that all works out,
because I know, for a while I've seen race car
driver or race car teams. Rather when the car pulls
and the pits, they would they would plug into the vehicle.
They would would use a chord like you know what
you plug in a camera or whatever to your computer,
(30:38):
you would you would plug in a chord and then
that would then communicate with the laptop that they had.
But I don't think they even need that chord anymore.
I think it's all wireless at this point. I think
telemetry is more check me up if I'm wrong on
this listeners, more an umbrella term for that kind of
wireless stuff. So even that early day stuff might have
been called telemetry, but they didn't know what to call
it at that point. Yeah, yeah, maybe what's the etymology
(31:00):
of the term, but they but it sounds like it
comes from the Greek. But the that's neither here nor
there it's not really important. No, no, not for this stuff,
for this way, but for but this is the question, right, Uh,
what about this optimization makes the zero to sixty number deceptive?
(31:21):
What what makes the five to sixty number different? Alright, Well,
so here the five to sixty is more of a
real world situation versus the zero to sixty because it's
very rare when you are at a dead stop and
you've got the revs really high and then you just
dump the collection and try to take off and get
up to sixty as quickly as you can't agree, It
really doesn't happen all that often, and only in you
(31:42):
know situation where you're you know, maybe you're at a
stop light and you want to show off to somebody. Fine,
I understand that, but it happens. You shouldn't do it, probably,
but but anyways, that happens, or you're at an actual
race track and you wanted to you wanted to perform
that way, or um, you know again, just you know,
on your own, you're you're out in a parking lot
somewhere and you just want to see what your car does.
That's another situation, but it rarely, rarely happens when you
(32:04):
want to do a fast zero to sixty sprint without
spinning the tires, you know, just try to get a
fastest speed. That really doesn't happen. What normally happens is
and even if you're unconsciously doing this, the car is
actually rolling a little bit when you accelerate. Typically, like
let's say that you're on an on ramp and you
just come around a right hand turn to enter the
(32:27):
on ramp that you know, then circles onto the highway.
You're you're usually going pretty slow. I mean, I'm gonna say, Okay,
five is what they give normally, you know, these tests
are doing five to five to sixty, which ends up
being slower than zero to sixty. But um, let's say
that you're going ten miles an hour and you roll
around the corner, maybe ten to twelve miles. Now you
roll around the corner and then you start to pick
up speed on that ramp, your car is gonna be
(32:48):
slower getting from five miles per hour let's say ten
up to sixty. Then it would be from zero to sixty.
It's far more common for you to be rolling already
and then and then need that acceleration than it is
to be at a dead stop and need to go immediately,
not top speed, but you know, sixty or so. It's
you know, some of these uh, these magazines have been
(33:09):
doing this for years and years, and if you go
back and look at Road and Track, Car and Driver,
any of those magazines, look at their comparison tests, or
you know, just their the reviews of cars, they will
not only do a zero to sixty run and a
quarter mile run and all the standard stuff that they
normally do, they will also do a five to sixty.
They will also do sometimes a thirty to fifty, a
fifty to seventy um. So that's all important and they
realize that, you know, that's important because that like fifty
(33:31):
seventy would be passing, and it's important to know that
if your car is capable of passing that that semi
that's ahead of you, or it's important to know that
you know, when you're merging on the highway, which is
where the five to sixty comes in. Really that five
to sixty number is critical because that really gives you
kind of the real world idea of what your vehicle
is gonna do in traffic. So when you're in downtown,
(33:52):
you know merging situations. How much confidence do you have
in your car that you can get up to speed quickly,
you can get into traffic, you can maneuver at the
way you need to, And sixty is being I guess
generous in this case because typically you need to go
up to seventy's. Like, you know, it seems like a
lot of people are going a lot faster now on
the main highways, even through a downtown, a busy downtown
like what we have in Atlanta. Well, what I like
(34:14):
to do is kind of take the whenever. This is
the approach I take. When I'm getting on the Interstate.
I do the the Sunday driver and kind of like
putter down the ramp and then right when I get
to where it's about to connect to the Interstate, then
I pull off to the side, come to a full stop,
and then I I check a five hour energy drink,
(34:37):
and then I just slam on the gas, you know,
so I can get that zero to sixty. That's a
that's a great thing to do. Yeah, I'm sure it
doesn't disrupt traffic in any way or anything. No, the
police love me. There's nothing illegal about that, now that
I think about it, really um I I honestly, of course, guys,
I don't do things like that. UM I kind of
(34:59):
picture you're doing that maybe once or twice. Just why
why that's ridiculous to see what happens. You know. I
used to, Uh, I used to until my girlfriend got
very upset with me about it. I used to be
one of those people who always stopped to check on
motorists because we have a thing here in Atlanta called
hero Where where you know, it's a it's a roadside
(35:21):
assistance vehicle that travels around in the city. Free service,
a free service, free to motorists. It's not you know,
you're paying for it through taxes and all that, but
still it's a free service. And you know, it's a
big vehicle, looks like a paramatics fan or something. Yeah,
like a yellow ambulance and uh, and it's it's helpful
to people. But before that, I used to always stop
because you know, you never know what kind of situation
(35:44):
of persons in and oftentimes it's just something very small
like oftentimes they might have just run out of gas,
you got a flat but they don't have the stuff
to fix it, which happens more than it should. Cards
overheating something like that, whatever the situation, or maybe they
don't understand what's going on, and maybe you do. You
know that you can. You can just tell them it's
(36:06):
not really a big deal. If you know the engine
light is on but not flashing, well, you know you
can go the extra mile and get to the gas
station and have it checked out if you want. Yeah.
There have also been some other times for us said oh, yeah, no,
this is we have to get a belt. I'll drive
you to the gas station. And sir, I gotta say, Ben,
(36:26):
I mean, that's nice that you've stopped and help people out.
I've done that in the past, and recently I've done
it less and less and I don't like to admit that,
but I have done it less and less than The
reason is that, quite frankly, you just hear some of
the bad stuff that happens, right, You hear people making
um using uh the I using the appearance of a
stranded motorist to as a as a trap for crime. Yeah,
(36:50):
and you know that. Okay, again, this is really tough
to to put into words, I guess to to uh
to to differentiate between when you should and when you
shouldn't do that. But they're times when I feel confident that, yeah,
this is this is something that I can help this
person out with, you know, or or I can pull
over and be safe in this situation. Other times I
look and I say, no way, I'm not I'm not
(37:10):
getting involved in that at all. Um, it's really tough
to figure out which is which. But you have to
make just a gut gut decision almost right away too,
because you're passing it, you know, six or seventy miles
an hour. You have to decide quickly what you're gonna do. Yeah,
And that that's another thing too. It's like the time
investment of just of stopping going just talking about going
(37:31):
to a full stop on the side of the highways
from what reminded me about And that's that's just such
a that's such a tangent, you know. And also it
changed a lot when I was living in a city
because where I you know, a lot of my formative
years were spent in more rural environment, you know, and
then a suburban environment. So you see someone broken down,
(37:51):
and it may be someone that you're familiar with in town.
You don't know them, but you you've seen them over
the last ten years. Yeah, or it's just a road
where you might be the only other car coming for
the next four hours, and so I, you know, I
want to stop. And you know, I totally understand what
you're saying. And it's and it's getting more and more
difficult to to be a good citizen in that situation.
(38:13):
But you're right, you're right that Hero program and I
think that's in place in a lot of cities, a
lot of major cities. Now, Um, it's just a quick
cell phone call away, and there's signs on the side
of the road that that indicate you know what number
to call in your city to do that. But it's
a great service. And again, if you need a gallon
of gas, you need an air you know, Empire changed
some air entire whatever. Uh, they're right there for you. Now,
(38:33):
don't rely on them. They're not there to give you
free gas. They're there to help people who need help.
I wonder how often that happens. But you know, it
seems like a lot of trouble to go through to
get one gallon. Yes, Scott, I was gonna say, not
even me, man, even I wouldn't do that. But uh,
but sorry, this sounds like we're virgin and listen to
a different show at this point, but part of the
(38:54):
tangents you, guys, Phil, we hope that we answer your question.
We'd like to hear what car would be your favorite
of the of the ones we named to drive, uh,
not counting the disqualified one. Yeah, and uh. And also
keep in mind the thirty price that was critical for
Phil and his email and you know, and when you
(39:14):
when you nudge just a little bit above that, it's
a different ballgame. There's a few, you know, just below
the thirty five threshold. You get them heavy hitters. Yeah,
but then yeah, well then you're gonna spend thirty five.
You might supposed spend forty, Why not? You know you'd
finance that right, right, And if you're gonna go fifty,
let's just make it even, Just make it even even
round seventy because you're gonna have it for a while
(39:35):
and you want what's round about seventy by the way,
round about seven? Gosh. But all right, so we're gonna
head out. If you would like to contact us and
see some stories that don't make it onto the air,
check out our Facebook and our Twitter pages. We're car stuff.
Hs of you uh yeah, please give him a look.
We're we're kind of funny and you'll you'll see some
(39:57):
uh see some recent travels on there too, if you
If you visit the page and uh, let's see what else,
you can check out every episode that we've ever ever
done on our website, Car stuff Show dot com. You
can also talk to us directly, take a page from
Phil's book, if you have a suggestion, you have some feedback,
you have a picture of a cool car, or you
(40:18):
just want to say, hey, what's going on? Just about anything? Yeah,
just about anything, I guess no bomb making details or whatever.
Legal disclaimer you usually here, right, yeah, with with limitation,
with limitations, I'm fine with limericks. I don't know if
they're Scott's favorite. Okay, yeah, I just use good good sense,
good sense, good common sense in your limerick judgment. No, no,
(40:40):
I mean overall. Well. Yeah, if you want to send
us an email, we'd love to hear from you. Our
address is hard stuff at how stuff Work dot com.
For more on this and thousands of other topics, how
Stuff Works dot com. Let us know what you think.
Send an email to pass at House Awards dot com. Mmmmmmm,
CarStuff News
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