Today’s Cars Are Inefficient and Overweight
Thanks to government regulations, they’re a drag on our wallets, too.
by Eric Peters
March 31, 2022, 10:51 PM
A long time ago, Hot Rod magazine — paper and all — published an article called “Caddy Hack.” It was not about web hackers.
It was about taking panels off.
They did that to see how quickly an otherwise completely stock — the term means as it left the factory, unmodified — 1970 Cadillac Coupe de Ville could run the quarter mile when shorn of the weight that made it heavy and thus slow. In stock trim, the Caddy ran the quarter mile in just under 18 seconds, despite having a high (10:1) compression ratio 472-cubic-inch V-8 — that’s nearly eight liters of engine — under its hood that made an advertised 375 horsepower.
A new Prius — with less than half that power — is quicker.
But the Caddy was crippled by its 4,648-pound curb weight. Think about it: a container ship has more horsepower than a speedboat. Which gets from A to B sooner?
But what if you could cut the Caddy’s weight by, say, 2,000 or so pounds? And that’s just what the guys at Hot Rod did, literally. With a saw. They used it to hack off whatever the Caddy didn’t need to go quickly, which meant, ultimately, almost everything except the frame and drivetrain. Some 2,000 pounds lighter, the mechanically stock Caddy was as quick as most muscle cars of the period, running a best time through the quarter mile of 13.5 seconds at more than 100 mph.
How quick — how efficient — might today’s cars be if they weren’t required to be as heavy as they are?
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https://spectator.org/todays-cars-are-inefficient-and-overweight/
