Fast and Slow

An interesting thing about some of the quickest new vehicles is how slow they are.

For instance, the Jeep Wrangler Rubicon 392. It has the only V8 you can still get in a Wrangler. It’s the 6.4 liter (392 cubic inch) iteration of the 5.7 liter Hemi V8 that used to be available in numerous Jeep, Ram truck and Dodge vehicles. The 392 is one supercharger shy of being a Hellcat, but it’s still Hell on wheels, especially in the Wrangler Rubicon – which is a jacked-up 4×4 riding on 33-inch off-road knobbies. With 470 horsepower on tap, the Rubicon 392 can accelerate to 60 in 4.2 seconds and can run the quarter mile in the high 12 second range. It would be quicker than that if the thing’s speed limiter let it be. Since it doesn’t, the Jeep hits its electronically allowed top speed of just 100 MPH before it passes through the traps.

That makes it pretty slow even though it’s very fast.

An old Toyota Prius – not the current model but the notoriously slow model – could get to 120 MPH, if you had enough time to get there. I know because I got there. Just to see whether I could. The point is that while the Jeep would jump away from an old Prius when the red light goes green, the Prius would eventually catch up and pass the Jeep – which is kind of funny when you think about it some.

Another thing worth thinking about is that on the highway, at the now-normal 75-80 flow of traffic, the Jeep is operating at about 80-85 percent of its top speed capability. I’m givin’ er all she’s got, cap’n! 

Another slow fast ride is the Ford F150 Raptor R, which is the ultra-performance iteration of Ford’s half-ton pickup. It is powered by the Shelby GT500 Mustang’s 5.2 liter supercharged V8 that makes 720 horsepower and 640 ft.-lbs. of torque. That’s enough horsepower (and torque) to move a nearly three-ton (5,710 lb.) half-ton pick-up from a dead stop to 60 in 3.6 seconds and through the quarter-mile in 12 seconds flat. But the top speed – electronically limited to 114 MPH – keeps it from going any faster. That means a 720 horsepower Raptor R would have a tough time getting away from a cop driving a V6-powered Charger cop car. Those cars can hit 130 – even though they have less than half the power that the Raptor R’s got.

You can thank the lawyers for this, by the way.

They looked at the liability issues that might arise as a result of selling to the general public lifted 4x4s that could – if they weren’t electronically speed limited – probably hit 150 MPH, at which point they’d likely go airborne due to the lift of all that air pushing up from underneath them. Even at 100, a lifted 4×4 is not what you’d call stable. Advances in suspension design have helped make lifted 4x4s feel less precarious when they’re moving fast, but it’s just a feeling. A sudden over-correction (because a dog ran into the road) and it’s a good chance it’ll be barrel-roll city. Also, the highest legal speed limit in the United States is 85 MPH and that’s only in a very few places. In most places it is 65-70. It would be easy meat for a Better Call Saul type to make a good case that Ford (and Jeep) were reckless and negligent selling steroidal 4x4s like the Wrangler 392 and the Raptor R to the general public, in the wake of a gory crash.

Lawn darts were taken off the market for less.

The GMC Hummer EV is a different kind of slow – though it is even faster. This thing packs 1,000 horsepower and can get to 60 in less than 3 seconds, but it also weighs (and this is not a typo) more than 9,000 pounds, chiefly due to its massive battery pack, which all by itself weighs as much as a ’70s VW Beetle did.  It reaches its top speed – governed to 112 MPH – long before it reaches the end of the quarter mile but even if it GM didn’t limit the EV Hummer’s speed electronically, it wouldn’t go that much faster than its limited speed on account of its steamroller-esque weight. It is a little known thing about EVs as a class that while most are quick, they are mostly pretty slow – as far as top speed goes.

The Chevy Bolt, for instance, packs 200 horsepower – which (as a point of reference) is exactly the same factory rated horsepower touted by the 455 cubic inch (7.5 liter) V8 that was the highest-output engine you could get in a 1976 Pontiac Trans-Am, which (when so equipped) was the most powerful American performance car available in 1976. The Bolt and the ’76 TA with the 455 are neck-and-neck through the quarter mile, each posting a 15-something-second time through the traps. But the Bolt runs out of speed at 93 MPH, which the ’76 Trans-Am can reach in third. In fourth – and all out – a 1976 Trans-Am with the 455 and the four speed manual transmission could reach about 134 MPH at redline on the tach.

There are some EVs that are quick and fast, such as the Tesla S (which is limited to 155 MPH but can be “unlocked” to go faster than that) but I will tell you – having driven most of the EVs that are on the market – they start to feel not-so-fast once that initial burst of speed dissipates. This is because you have already past peak torque – and it’s torque that pushes you back in the seat. Horsepower keeps you going, but the going gets slower (usually) the faster you go because the faster you go, the more force is needed to push the weight through the wind.

The long and short of it is you could win a race against a 392 Wrangler or Raptor R or Hummer or Bolt in just about anything – if you keep your foot in it long enough.

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