Man, who doesn’t love a powerful car? The more power, the more better, amirite? Even when all that’s required is basic transportation, a little extra oomph is appreciated. No one visits their mechanic and says “I’d like a little less out of the engine.” And rest assured, any salesman accompanying a starry-eyed first-time econobox buyer on a test drive will invite them to mash the pedal (once up to about 30mph or so) before offering a suitably impressed, “it’s pretty peppy, right?”
But woe to those who find themselves behind the wheel of a truly underpowered car. Merely not-powerful is disappointing, sure, but livable. A bonafide underpowered car, however, is true misery. Frustrated drivers in real cars whiz past you the moment you clear the on-ramp. Not only is the left lane off limits, so is the center lane. Even the right lane requires a sharp eye on the rear view mirror, lest you overlook an angry moped rider crowding your rear bumper. A steep hill on the horizon? Better mat the pedal now and build up as much momentum as you can.
Tell us about your underpowered-car experiences. If you suffered through stewardship of a malaise-era machine, you no doubt encountered some steel sleds boasting V8s with big cubes but precious few ponies. Or perhaps you commuted in a hatchback that, while lightweight, was very lopsided when it came to power to weight and rewarded you with great fuel economy and zero fun. Hey, at least you were speed-trap proof.
What cars, trucks, and/or motorcycles wheezed you to school or work with the bare minimum of muscle? Let’s hear those stories!
Late 90’s Chevy S-10 pickup with the 4-cylinder motor. Wow, that thing was gutless and had a transmission that felt like it had a rubber band torque converter. My boss had one to go from job to job. Occasionally I would need to grab it to take care of a call. Felt like it would barley go up steep hills even empty.
The manuals with the same 2.2L were much better. Idk why the automatic robbed so much of the pep but that was a great motor with a proper transmission
I recall driving a few S10 Blazers, even the 4.3 v6 felt like it had a boat anchor tied to the bumper.
My main driver is a Honda Today Associe with 48 metric horsepower (that’s 47 of y’alls imperial hp), but thanks to a 1499lb curb weight it’s perfectly okay as long as we stay beneath 65mph. My MIL’s four-cylinder Subaru Outback, however, is dangerously slow and extreeeeemely unresponsive. It allegedly has 168hp; perhaps there is some other problem with it.
Our ‘83 Riviera convertible and ‘53 Willys CJ3B are in a pretty even match for “most underpowered.” The little Willys can hardly move itself past 35mph, I think half the Rivi’s horsepower is routed to its horn – because the crank only gets 140hp from its 307ci.
Had to be my ’86 VW Golf diesel. It was the epitome of ‘reverse sleeper’. GTI wheels, suspension, seats, 16v quad headlight conversation. It looked like it could rip along quite nicely, but that 54hp NA diesel said otherwise. I did get it up to 142kph once – on a long downhill stretch of freeway, only for my speed to drop to about 60kph spewing black smoke as I climbed back out of the valley.
I had a similar Jetta coupe and loved it. Turn up the injection pump and never lift. It becomes a much more fun car.
I once test drove a 1988 Toyota Camry with a 4 cylinder engine I’m pretty sure had massive carbon buildup on its valves. It felt like half it’s horses had left the stable and the rest had asthma. My BIL’s 30 years older MGA felt like a rocket in comparison.
Must be, because I’ve had the same and I’d definitely say it qualified as peppy.
Not the least horsepower ever, but the one that felt the most overrated on horsepower.
I had a 2004 Camry with 157 horsepower and a friend of mine had a 2004 Mustang V6 with 190 horsepower. If both of us floored it from a red light, my Camry would slowly pull ahead.
I don’t know if Ford fudged the numbers or if the transmission was just super parasitic or what, but that has got to be one of the most unimpressive engines I’ve ever driven.
I have to say my Isuzu Amigo. A 2.2 litre 130hp demon. I had worse cars but this little puppy couldnt get out of its way. Uphill? As yakov would say In Amigo semi passes you. I did luv the little snail. It would draw attention because it had more stripes than a 70s Rv. People would point and say look at that s car go (escargo/snail get it?). My brother hit a deer with it, i was surprised it could go fast enough to total it.
For most of the time I owned my $200 ’92 Volvo 740 Turbo wagon (automatic, as they all were by that point in the US, as far as I know), the turbocharger was on its way out and the wastegate actuator arm was disconnected, so it got no boost.
Now, a factory N/A example’s not totally gutless, though no rocket ship, with 114 HP/136 lb-ft pushing a bit over a ton and a half… but the turbo engine (B230FT) only made 8.3:1 compression versus the 9.8:1 of the N/A B230F. I’d be shocked if that thing made 90 horses after what I imagine was 200k+ miles (the engine had been replaced at some point; the chassis had 214k on it when it died).
That car got the 17 MPG highway you’d expect from a fully-functioning turbo example, because I had to mat the throttle to climb hills or merge onto the highway. A regular B230F would’ve managed somewhere in the low-to-mid 20s.
All of that’s just leading up to how ungodly slow it was on the 30-mile drive home after the turbo really quit, puking oil at the rate of a quart every 10 miles (I stopped a few times to top it off from a five-quart jug) and laying down a cloud that forced oncoming traffic to brake and likely put a sizeable dent in the local mosquito population. If I hadn’t been close to flat broke at the time, I would’ve had it towed.
It barely made it onto the ramps in my garage, where I’d be swapping on a new wastegate and turbo, and my neighbors came by to make sure they didn’t have to call the fire department.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dA3PTPRm5T8
“But whoa to those” – woe is the word.
Also, the three-banger Metro only had around 50 horsepower. 70 was the big-chested 1.3-liter four.
Came here for this. “Whoa to those” could almost be part of a real sentence, but I don’t think that’s what he meant lol.
And some people say puns aren’t funny.
My four valve per cylinder Vtec Honda 1.0 makes 68hp though. They were just talking about Insights recently so maybe it was confusing the geo 1.0 to the honda 1.0.
Late ’80s Plymouth Horizon, the Omni’s stablemate with the automatic. Owned by my girlfriend at the time, I’ll never forget how driving it in the hilly interstates in Pennsylvania was something else…scary going up or down, just for different reasons.
Where r u in PA?
We’d visit her family in the Pittsburgh area mostly. Wow that was long time ago…I mean, her Horizon was still just a gently used (terrible) car then. I’m sure none of them actually exist anymore.
“scary going up or down, just for different reasons.” hahaha
I’d say either a 1984 Plymouth Horizon with the anemic 62 hp Peugeot 6J I4 or a mid 80s Subaru Justy with the 66 hp EF12. The Horizon had an auto and the Justy had a 5 speed and they were both woefully underpowered. I’m not typically one to say that you need “x horsepower” to drive safely, but any 4 cylinder engine producing less than 70 hp with a 1 bbl carburetor is terrifying.
We had the same answer at exactly the same time – the Horizon. It was one of the most malaise-iest of them all (and there were a lot), wasn’t it?
It really was. The sad thing was the example I drove was a low-mileage, inexplicable garage queen. Very, very clean and well kept. So I can’t blame the performance on condition. That’s just the way it was, truly awful, at least in terms of apparent power to weight ratio.
To be honest, I did kinda like the crazy floor-mounted shifter (like many cars then). Hers was an auto and wow that was a long shifter!
You don’t know what slow is.
Slowest I think was a VW Type 2 window bus, 1200cc of plant your foot and try not to slow down goodness. My 70 mph, downhill with the wind, 797cc Suzuki LJ80 seemed like a rocket sled compared with that.
Came here to say this, I worked on a recently restored 67 bus and the test drive after was terrifying on a 40mph speed limit local road. Easily the slowest vehicle I have ever driven, vague and sketchy brakes and clutch and the awareness of where your knees are located in space. Somehow someone paid 6 figures for it.
I once owned a Vette…..
Chevette
I took drivers-ed in a yellow 4-door Chevette. Not only was it the slowest vehicle in existence, but the instructor wouldn’t let us give it enough gas to downshift on hills. Which meant 25mph up hill with tractor trailers barreling past at 70. It was terrifying.
I learned stick on a 2-door ’84 Chevette with no options. That wasn’t great by any means, but it still gave the illusion of forward motion. My girlfriend’s sister at the time had a 4-door ’82 with an auto and AC. I remember trying to drive that dumb thing back to college with three other people and some luggage on board. It couldn’t hold 55 with the AC turned on.
1986 Renault Alliance.
Unpleasant little car with (allegedly) 60hp and a 4MT. Climbing hills sometimes required planning beyond “foot to the mat”.
Honestly, I think the fuel-injected ’73 Squareback did better on the highway. It would maintain speed (55mph) up a hill with four people and a bunch of stuff because it had more oomph lower in the rev range than the Renault did.
My Renault Alliance in an automatic used to struggle maintaining the highway flow of traffic on the big hills along 84 East & Masspike. Pretty sure my 85 Encore had a 5 spd MT the extra gear helped over my 86 Encore 4 spd MT.
26 foot box truck with a Ford 300 I6.
Luckily I live in flat terrain, because that was challenging enough.
It’s between the following two vehicles:
1. My Dad’s 1981 Cadillac Fleetwood Coupe Diesel. Mash gas, wait . . .wait . . .wait
2. I rented a 1995 Ford Aspire one time. As the Car Talk guys used to say, “it aspired to be something else”. It really was not suitable to drive on the freeway, or anywhere else for that matter.
A friend of mine once owned an ’89 Escort. I do not know how many horses it had when new, but I think most of them left the corral and the rest were being strangled by the automatic transmission.
Now, the thing was made out of tissue paper and regret so you might think that with light weight it might be doable. And, on a flat surface – this was in Saskatchewan, a land of flat surfaces – it was dismal and slow but you could successfully reach your destination if you managed your expectations.
However, in Saskatchewan there is also a valley, and sometimes you have to drive through it – such as when your friend buys a Mazda 3 to replace his Escort. And the hill out is fairly steep. Meaning I buried the gas into the carpet and couldn’t manage to go beyond 80km/h when leaving the valley. It might have been slow, but at least it was loud.
My Mom’s mid 1980’s Peugeot 505S Diesel was the slowest car I’ve driven by far. I would literally push the accelerator to the floor leaving a light and it would just slowly chug up to speed.
1987 Jeep Wrangler with the stock 4.2 liter inline-6 that made only 112 HP (!) on 35×1250 mud tires with stock (3.07) gearing. Drove it back and forth from college (around 100 miles) on a weekly basis on 70 MPH freeways. It could barely get out of its own way and often couldn’t even keep up with traffic.
First Gen Chevy Volt. I lived near the 110 in Los Angeles when I owned one. Those very short entrance ramps were a nightmare in that vehicle.
For me, it was a VW 412 with an absolutely awful standard fuel injection system.
I still have nightmares, where I wake up in a cold sweat, imagining passing a semi on the interstate with that thing. Oh my freaking gawd.
Probably my daily – 97 land cruiser. 212 hp and 4850 lbs from the factory…both of which are lies.
At my elevation I am seeing 130 whp on a good day and empty with driver it’s about 5500 lbs.
42 lbs/hp.
Gotta be the Dodge Caliber rental I ferried three other people around Massachusetts in on a business trip. It seriously felt like it was missing a cylinder.
1991 Jetta Diesel – naturally aspirated. It had 52 hp. And air conditioning. Only car that I’ve owned that you drove will your foot to the rug in every gear.
oooh you had A/C
A/C in an underpowered older car? Oh, you mean the reverse-NOS button!
I actually turned the AC off before the on ramp. Driving that car was scary on the freeway.
toss up between 57 Opel Rekord with a 1.2 45hp or the 85 Jetta diesel with 54hp both felt pretty slow- trying to merge onto the Autobahn in the first and LA freeways in the second caused a need for new underwear
That’s a good automotive CV, though.
I have a running 83 diesel rabbit blue on blue. Makes me wanna go drive it.