QOTD: Do You Still Care About Horsepower?
The 2018 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon produces 808 horsepower; 840 if you find some racing fuel.
I don’t care.
Don’t get me wrong. I like fast cars. I like fast SUVs. I like fast minivans. I like quick acceleration, high top speeds, rapid shifts, prodigious tire smoke, and burbly exhaust.
But outrageous horsepower numbers are almost becoming boring. They’re so common. So ordinary. So…
Easy.
Anybody can throw a few hundred extra horsepower at a decade-old muscle coupe. But what else can you do to impress me?
Don’t confuse my lack of enthusiasm for the Challenger SRT Demon’s 808-horsepower achievement with a lack of desire for Challenger SRT Demon ownership. I would Friday-Nights-Only-Garage-Queen the snot out of that thing.
But I’m not finding myself any more revved up for the Challenger SRT Demon’s 808 horsepower than I was for the Challenger SRT Hellcat’s 707 horsepower. And to be honest, 606 would be an acceptable figure, too.
I don’t have a problem with 808 horsepower — I’m glad FCA is crazy enough to let Dodge do this — but my viability for horsepower-derived fervor begins to taper off when already-crazy levels of horsepower grow fractionally larger and distinctly more difficult to access.
Perhaps it’s my Miata-loving nature coming out, my love for working a car over in order to make progress, as though I’m the one supplying the speed and not the car itself.
But I do like fast cars, I like my neck to be snapped back by the kind of unexpected acceleration you couldn’t get in conventional cars 20 years ago but now seems common. I just no longer find myself enticed by lofty on-paper figures.
In order to become truly engaged, I need more.
Do you care about horsepower? Or is your automotive addiction tied to something less tangible, something less obvious, something less ostentatious?
Timothy Cain is the founder of GoodCarBadCar.net, which obsesses over the free and frequent publication of U.S. and Canadian auto sales figures. Follow on Twitter @goodcarbadcar and on Facebook.
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Scalpels, bowie knives and chainsaws can be fun depending on the context. I wouldn't do heart surgery with a chainsaw, nor chop down a tree with a scalpel. I could afford a lot more car than my Focus base hatchback with 5 speed and essentially a Miata engine, but it's a good feeling to rev it up and feel like I'm using all the car I paid for. And handling is a big thing for me, I can't use 808 horsepower at 5 pm on the 405, but having a stable car that can let its hair down once in a while in the turns is fine for me. I've had a Subaru Legacy stage II, and that car was no fun unless you were going superlegal speeds. Ditto on the 2014 3.7 Mustang I rented and got my first speeding ticket in after 12 years of driving, it felt like a Maverick with a modern engine and radio.
One of the most fun car I have driven was an MGB with 43 hp. I don't need to go fast to have fun.