How much is enough?

In today's world, we're seeing all sorts if insane power numbers. Seems like 500 HP is pretty mundane now, 800-1000 is the new chest thumping level.

But in all honesty, how much power do you need to make your car fun to drive? Some people believe that 450 HP in about a 3500 pound car was just right for a, average street performance car.

How much is enough? I am just curious to see how much horsepower is enough for the street? With blowers, pro chargers, nitrous and turbos it's getting more and more common to see "street driven" cars hitting upper 3 digit numbers and more than a few over 1000.  

That's a good question. At a certain point you just can't get all that power to the ground. I would say 500hp is a pretty good number.  

my question is,you can handle the 500 h.p.?cause at the end is not the car is allways the driver.  

You made some very good suggestions..................  

The two best ways to insult a person, is to tell them they are bad in bed, or bad behind the wheel (Jackie Stewart).  And he's right.  Our football coach did no better job of making us Mario Andretti by teaching us Driver's Ed, than coach did making us Casanova by teaching us Sex Ed.

We know the basics. Now that safety devices like traction control are common in cars, we know even less about driving on the edge of physics by having a few "near misses" during our driving career.

But, if you listen to someone explain how much they spent on their engine, and you ask how much they spent on a Skip Barber driving course (or any other), they'll look at you weird.  

why is that?  Junkyards are loaded w/ crashed cars with 300hp--or less.  those cars aren't there b/c they wore out, they're there b/c their drivers couldn't handle the speed potential of that car.  Maybe they did the damage--or maybe they never saw the other car coming, and couldn't stop in time.  But the driver was still going faster than they could handle.

Stirling Moss once said, if you don't crash once in a while, you aren't really finding out how good you are.  But, he meant on a race track.

Road and Track magazine, once had a 5 page article on a Brit cop who taught how to drive fast.  He created the course b/c his own were geting killed in high speed pursuits.  BUT, the article actually was 5 pages b/c it actually had him give his course.  How he doesn't tailgate before passing, b/c then he can't see. Instead he plans the pass before, leaning out to see if the road is clear.  How he positions his car in the lane, so he doesn't rely on the brake lights in front of him to know when the car in front is going to stop.  Instead, he looks thru the other car's windows, or down the side of the car, to see what's going on ahead, so he can take his foot off the gas, and begin slowing down.

How if he sees a heavy truck coming over a hill, he tucks in to the side of the road, expecting there may be a car behind the truck looking to pass the truck--and will see he is in the way.  How he looks at the horizon, looking at what's coming up, and let's his perepheral vision take in what changes by the time he gets to that point. Frankly, its just like living life--look up ahead, predict problems, place yourself to duck them.  don't wait until they are right in front of you, to then deal with them.

I wish more magazines would do this. they'll tell you the classes exist, but they'll never tell you what the class teaches, like its supposed to be some secret.  At a car show, I listened to someone explain he couldn't drive his twin turbo in the rain--hell, I drive my 5.0 in the snow, up hills with stoplights at the top (ever try working a clutch and 2.87 gears and a cold engine at an uphill stoplight?).  

Take a few thousand away from the paint budget, and spend it on a good driving class.  then we who share the road with you only have to worry about the car's limits, not your own.  

did you hear about the guy test driving a new challenger doing over 100mph in a 45 zone that hit a taurus and killed two people?  happened yesterday...salesman in the back seat...data recorder showed 101mph 1 second before impact...stupidity runs rampant in the masses of society  

gtomustang, you said a mouth-full...if everyone drove that way, all of us would be safer...to bad that drivers ed isn't mandatory in every state...


put down the phone, turn off the gps (you're still in the "neighborhood"), put away the make-up, and drive

when did driving become a secondary activity?  

Thanks  and I think you can, actually, blame the extra safety devices for the change in idea about driving becoming a secondary activity.  A British wag once claimed the best way to make American roads safe, was to replace the driver side airbag with a spike, aimed up at the driver.

Think about it...how would we drive, knowing that every mistake would be painful?  would we tromp on the brakes less?  It sounds silly, but I do wonder...if cars were dangerous again, would we treat them with more respect?