QOTD: What's the Stealthiest 'Fast' Car?
Unassuming. Conservative. Mild in appearance. All of these terms — and more — perfectly fit the Subaru Forester XT I picked up yesterday morning, bitching and moaning all the while about the miserable cold weather.
Boxy. Tall. Big greenhouse. Yes, the slab-sided Forester’s proportions haven’t changed much since arriving on these shores in the late ’90s. Even the Burnished Bronze Metallic paint is reminiscent of the ubiquitous early-2000s metallic gold of my friend’s long-gone ’02. No aggressive fender bulges, diagonal character lines, coupe-like roofline or ground effects package for this little rig. That simply wouldn’t suit the Forester’s staid-but-capable persona.
Cranking the seat warmer to 11, I drove off. Man, I thought, this thing goes like stink.
Okay, there’s faster, far more svelte rigs out there, but those models at least look fast. The Forester, bless its heart, not so much. Still, with a 0-60 mile-per-hour time of 6.1 seconds and all-wheel traction, I can see this vehicle serving a tall, cold glass of emasculation to an unsuspecting Civic or Golf fanboy.
A friend once told a story of his childhood in a less-than-glamorous corner of Quebec. Undercover cops in the 1980s, he said, hit the streets in old Dodge Aspen and Plymouth Volares outfitted with older, easier-breathing 340 cubic-inch V8s sourced from wrecked Dusters and Swingers. Incognito to the extreme, the hopped-up F-bodies could keep up with anything (assuming advanced rust didn’t tear the body apart above 80 mph).
Let’s assume the story’s true. Both models could also be had with a police package and 360 c.i.d. V8, but we can’t call either variant an unadulterated civilian car. Still, there’s plenty of unassuming factory models with real power lurking under the hood — models seen most often with geriatric drivers behind the wheel, coasting along at 5 mph below the limit.
Which brings us to the question: what models count as go-fast sleepers? What overlooked vehicles harbor a Jekyll-and-Hyde personality?
[Image: Subaru]
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Before the latest horsepower war really took off, my ol' 1994 Buick Roadmaster Limited with the tow package (3.08 gears instead of the stock 2.73) was one heck of a sleeper. Brown too! That LT1 made lots of power down low. 0-60 was supposed to be 6.9ish, which isn't all that fast these days :( My old '86 Monte Carlo SS was a bit of a "surprise" car. Of course there was nothing subtle about the looks. Since the SSs came with weedy 305s, no one expected a roller-cammed 355 with a beefed up transmission.
Last generation V-6 RAV-4's. 14-second 1/4 miles...soccer mom styling. You would never know the same engine lurking in a Lotus Evora was sitting under the hood.