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The Quickest Cars of 2007

Introduction

There's an arms race among auto manufacturers, with weapons of displacement, compression, and boost being waged segment- and industry-wide. It's no surprise that most entries in this list are not cut from traditional sports-car cloth; of the 10 vehicles here, one is an SUV and six have four or more doors.

The Quickest Cars of 2007: $25,000 to $30,000.

Tenth Place: Subaru Forester 2.5XT
Ninth Place: Pontiac Grand Prix GXP
Eighth Place: Pontiac Solstice GXP/Saturn Sky Red Line (manual)
Seventh Place: Chevrolet Impala SS
Sixth Place: Nissan 350Z
Fifth Place: Mazdaspeed 6
Fourth Place: Subaru Legacy 2.5GT
Third Place: Pontiac Solstice GXP/Saturn Sky Red Line (automatic)
Second Place: Ford Mustang GT
First Place: Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution RS
BY JARED HOLSTEIN, PHOTOGRAPHY BY AARON KILEY, MORGAN SEGAL, AND THE MANUFACTURERS

For all the coolness of a car that goes 180 mph, that has about as much relevance to the average driver in this country as a 180-foot yacht. Accelerating from a start, on the other hand, is sort of legal in every state in the U.S., barring law-enforcement officers with an inflated sense of purpose (don't ask how we know about "Unsafe Start" statutes).

Below are the 10 quickest vehicles available with a base price between $25K and $30K, ranked in order of 0-to-60-mph time. Ties were settled first by quarter-mile time, then by which was quicker to the highest speed both cars achieved (usually 120 or 130 mph), in that order. Most cars at this price point offer basic luxury or at least decent amenities and looks in addition to speed, as buck-banger boy-racer models are thousands less, maybe having something to do with the fact that burger-flipper wages haven't budged in nine years.

The WRX is under $25K, and the STi is over $30K...which is why it's not on the list.


Here are the 1/4 mile times:

10th: Subaru Forester 2.5XT
14.3 sec @ 96 mph

9th: Pontiac Grand Prix GXP
14.3 sec @ 98 mph

8th: MANUAL Pontiac Solstice GXP/Saturn Sky Red Line
14.2 sec @ 98 mph

7th: Chevrolet Impala SS
14.2 sec @ 101 mph

6th: Nissan 350Z
14.2 sec @ 99 mph

5th: Mazdaspeed 6
14.0 sec @ 99 mph

4th:: Subaru Legacy 2.5GT
14.1 sec @ 97 mph

3rd:: AUTOMATIC Pontiac Solstice GXP/Saturn Sky Red Line
14.0 sec @ 98 mph

2nd: Ford Mustang GT
13.8 sec @ 103 mph

1st: Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution RS :
13.5 sec @ 103 mph

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Marty Howard
2011 NASA SE Factory Five Challenge Champion
Track Events Logistics Coordinator - TZC/THSCC
2007 Factory Five Challenge Car.
http://www.mh-motorsports.com

Mazdaspeed 3? And don't tell me it's under $25K. Bush will string 2 coherant sentences together with no made-up words before anyone finds a MS3 under $25K....

hehe, way to steal (well, paraphrase) a line out of a Car and Driver letter to the editor. . .

and yes, the Mazdaspeed3 starts under $25. You can spend 25k on it for sure if you get the GT model, but you can also spend 25k on a WRX, and it was excluded for the same reason.

And the reports of dealer markup are way exaggerated, you can get one for MSRP is you are firm with the dealer, there are dealers who will sell them for that. . .

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2012 MX-5 Sport SUV

I recently purchased a car meeting the price criteria that will blow the doors off all those cars, of course it wasn't exactly brand new.

Did you get the Automatic Chuck? If not...you always know where you could have had a couple of 10ths.

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Stephen Westerfield
2009 Infiniti M35 | 2007 Honda Fit Sport | 2005 Ford Mustang GT |2000 GMC Sierra |1992 Acura Integra LS | Super Westerfield Bros Acura Integra

I noticed that too, thats crazy. I could comprehend an F-body being quicker with the automatic potentially, but how a turbo four ends up so, seems very unlikely. Does the auto come with some sort of launch control???

I would think that has to be a gearing issue. Isn't the 2nd gear on the manual GXP stupidly short? I seem to remember it tops out in the mid-50's.

If the auto can hit 60mph in 2nd, that would definitely save time and could easily make it quicker to 60. 0-60 is such a poor performance metric that I don't think a couple of tenths will matter much overall. I'd be willing to bet that the manual GXP is quicker from 0-50 and definitely quicker digging out of slow corners.

I tend to think the bigger issue will be getting stuck between gears compared to other cars in the class...

Jim

What about the ability to brake boost the auto? Think that would buy you anything?

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2001 Honda S2000 - SOLD
2012 Boss 302
2003 BMW 330i

It is not uncommon for automatic turbocharged car to be quicker than the manual. You never lift off the gas and the turbo never loses boost like a manual. I had a 280 turbo automatic that would be destroyed off the line by 300Z turbos (Z31s) with 5 speeds, but by 70-80 mph, I was reeling them in and passing them....

Forester XT auto is slower than the manual; if they'd tested a manual and knew how to drive it, it would be around 2nd or 3rd on that list.

Exactly. That's why most dragracers use automatic trannys where allowed. Both of my brother's cars have highly modded autos in them.
Also being able to spool up the turbo at the line, the boost comes on full at 2500 rpm. (I'd bet that the driver doing the testing has a lot to do with it as well, it's much more difficult to launch a standard tranny, and the GXP has a surprisingly stiff clutch)
The GXP was likely hampered by the OEM tires, it comes with all-seasons, wouldn't be my first choice for drag racing.
I expect the gearing to be less an issue with the GXP than with the S2K, and I think Donnie has said the STi requires a lot of shifting as well. It's a new era at nationals with less traction and tighter courses than at Forbes, possibly having to shift to 3rd a couple times was less a consideration than being able to dig out of a tight slow turn in our evaluating new rides.
That's why we rejected the MS3, Mazda saw fit to not only equip it with narrow wheels but boost limited 1, 2 gears.

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SPIN or WIN!
there's no glory for going slow.