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!
1969 Subaru 360. Second place was 1988 Suzuki Samurai.
My first car was an ’86 Chevy Celebrity with the 90 HP Iron Duke. You could basically floor it anywhere because it was so slow. I was only able to max out the 85 MPH speedo once. Still the only engine I’ve completely seized to this day.
I too managed to destroy an Iron Duke.
I had a Geo as a rental one time while my car was in the shop. Since it was a rental, I treated the throttle as a switch. All or nothing. It was bad, but I only had it two days for a bit of local driving.
The most underpowered car I had to drive a long distance was when I was helping a friend of a friend move some cars from Indiana to North Carolina back in my college days. My friend got to drive the Alfa Romeo Spider, and I got stuck with Yugo. It was bad on the interstates, and then nearly didn’t make it up the FOAF’s driveway which was up a mountain in Ashville.
The USA market VW Rabbit Diesel. Ye gods that thing was slow; you measured 0-60 with a calendar. Handled surprisingly well if you got it pointed downhill somewhere though.
Came here to say much the same. A caddy pickup with a 1.6 and a bed full of car parts and two big dudes in the cab. It was bad.
I learned how to drive on two different family vehicles: 1982 VW Rabbit Diesel with a four-speed manual (52 horsepower), and a 1978 VW Bus (67 horsepower). It was difficult to pass any cars on a two lane highway at 55 MPH.
I’m probably wrong, but for some reason the ’78 Bus felt stronger at highway speeds, but took longer to get there. I’m guessing both vehicles had 0-60 mph times a little less than 20 seconds.
I had a 1984 Jeep Cherokee with the GM 2.8l V6. I thought it would be a good idea to lift it and put 31” tires on it. I live in CO so there are a lot of hills. This thing would struggle to do 35mph up the hills on the highway. I used it in the Rocky Mountain Rambler 500 (similar concept to the Gambler 500) and loaded 3 friends and a bunch of gear in it. At one point we had to to go up a hill on a state highway (50MPH speed limit) starting from a stop at the bottom. It would only go 25 miles per hour and had to be in 2nd gear.
That thing gave me a new appreciation for my 165 hp Subaru which is definitely slow, but can still at least go 70mph up the hills in the mountains.
The biggest Uhaul truck you could rent (maybe ’26 or ’28 feet, I don’t remember, I didn’t rent it, just drove it to help out a friend). N/A diesel, with a 5 speed (guess it’s good it wasn’t an automatic?). Every hill I hit on the highway for what was supposed to be a 3 hour drive, I’d be foot-on-the-floor in fifth gear at the bottom, maybe get it up above 55 or 60, and by the top of the hill I’d be doing 35 in 3rd gear with my foot on the floor, and repeat. Basically only had to lift my right foot to shift, and kept it floored otherwise. Took like 5 hours to do the drive. Miserable (also no A/C and no working radio. With three of us in the cab). The one time being the one person who could drive a stick, particularly in something big, was decidedly not an advantage.
The most underpowered that didn’t feel like it was my 81 Chevy Citation (4-door, not the X-11). I felt like I had something with that V6. Compared to the Geo Metros and such that I was around others with, maybe I did. 12.5 second 0-60 from 110 hp and keeping the 85 mph speedometer needle buried fairly often felt plenty fast compared to my dad’s old Chevy stepside and my mom’s Aerostar.
The one that felt slower than I wanted it to was my Cavalier coupe. I was young and dumb and wanted something sporty and fun. It was neither, but the coupe bodystyle tricked me into thinking it was. Faster than the Citation, it looks like it made it to 60 in a blistering 10.1 seconds. My Niro even does better than that.
In North America – A friend of mine had a mid 1970s Westphalia (VW camper). The engine blew up, so he got a friend of a friend to rebuild it. This friend decided that the compression ratio from VW was just too damn high, so he double head gasketed the engine to “make it reliable”. Well, the standard VW engine had about 8:1 compression, so this thing probably had 7:1. It was brutal to drive – 1st gear was OK for power but you had to shift at 10 mph and by the time you got to 4th, there was no acceleration left, so you could scream along in 3rd at about 45mph or go to 4th and creep up to maybe 50mph. Any kind of grade and you were in 2nd or 3rd.
In India – I had a company diesel Mahindra (Jeep) that had about 40hp at sea level but our project site was at 8,000 ft and the local roads went well over 12,000ft, where that poor engine made lots of smoke and noise but no power whatsoever. Probably just as well since it had 4 wheel drum brakes with no power assist. I had to drive it in low range a lot of the time.
In 1975 I bought a 1963 VW van (Type 2) with the 1200cc engine that had (when new) a claimed 40HP. The national speed limit at the time was 55MPH, and it would get there, eventually. After a few months of throwing rods or dropping valve seats, I decided to rebuild the engine to my specs: heads, pistons, cylinders from a 1500cc engine; hand balanced and polished rods, crank, and pistons; smaller crank pulley; Bosch distributor with mechanical rather than vacuum advance; external oil cooler; exhaust headers and muffler like those fitted to Baja Bugs. I also had an extra carb jet for high altitude use. In this configuration, we’d drive from Santa Cruz down to Orange County, up to Marin, across the Sierra to the eastside–just all over California. On the flat it could now do 60MPH, but going up a steep grade at 10,000 feet the maximum would be 15MPH–and in the winter we had to use a Coleman catalytic heater placed between the front seats to keep the ice of the inside of the windshield. Name: “The Beast of Burden.”
Yikes, that sounds horrible. My dad bought a 1978 VW Bus brand-new and made sure he ordered the auxiliary “gas heater” since we lived in central Minnesota. At least our Type 2 had the 2.0 liter version with fuel injection and hydraulic valve lifter (similar to, but much less power than the Porsche 914 engine).
The Geo Metro 3 cyl I had the mispleasure of driving a few times was rated 55hp, and automatic for extra fun. Was a 93ish iirc
I drove a 92 Metro. No power steering, power windows, air bags, power locks, etc. I had the highest insurance premiums in the family based solely on the car I drove.
I had a Honda Ruckus that I commuted with daily in Seattle. Going up Seattle’s hills on that 49.5CC was barely walking pace. But, Seattle has enough side streets and relatively traffic-free arterial roads that it was safe-ish. But when I moved to SoCal, that Ruckus was dangerously slow. Shouldn’t be allowed on public roads slow, at least relative to the speeds of most traffic.
My other underpowered ride was my grandma’s hand-me-down 1981 Dodge Aries Wagon. 2.2 litres and 84HP of non-air-conditioned and vinyl seat shame.
My friend had a Honda Elite 80. I remember riding up some steeo suburban canyon road and he was pushing the bike with his feet to make it up.
Definitely my first car, a 1987 Chrysler Fifth Avenue. A hand me down from my mom (and grandmother before her) around 2003, it had a white exterior with a red interior – an ALL red interior, including the shaggy carpet. With the overstuffed seats and wallowy suspension, you were basically driving a supremely cushy couch down the road
Even in 1987 it was still carb’d, had a 5.2L V8 and somewhere around 140 hp with a 3 speed automatic. I’m reading the 0 – 60 was around 12 seconds. Nothing about this car encouraged brisk driving and efforts to push it harder just made the already awful around town gas mileage worse, so a perfect teenager car in its way
Back in the 80’s, I bought a brand new ’86 Dodge Colt, it was not the pocket rocket of previous years that my friends had. It was pathetic. There was a steep driveway I almost couldn’t drive up, it was so steep. I had to back up out of the driveway and barely made it out.
In the late 90’s I bought my aunt’s well taken care of ’86 Mustang LX. Too bad it had the 4 banger. It was sooo slow it hurt.
I once test-drove a Toyota Chinook camper with a 20R and an automatic. 55 mph flat out, and it took easily 30 seconds to get there.
Most underpowered daily: my 1972 Mercedes 220D. Great, gorgeous little car that sounded like the inside of a small Cessna at 60mph, which took almost 30 seconds to arrive at from a standing start.
Most underpowered car ever: a 1948 Dodge Power Wagon converted to a rural firetruck. My dad asked me to paint the newly constructed tank and skid-unit in the back along with part of the bed – it was still in active duty at the time. There was a sticker on the dash that said “Do not exceed 45mph” which I found funny since it took an agonizing amount of time to reach that speed. Luckily I was able to putt along on gravel most of the way out to the shop where I worked at the time.
My 1980 KV Mini 1 has a single-cylinder two-stroke engine with a displacement of 125 cc and a rather optimistic official top speed of 55 km/h (34 mph) but it is nonetheless street-legal and I do drive it to work from time to time. I haven’t found any factory literature stating its horsepower rating nor have I yet had mine on a dynamometer. I’ve seen unofficial claims of six horsepower but that also may be somewhat optimistic.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52763070823_2cfb092975_c.jpg
They make shop vacs with more horsepower than that.
Look, I had a hard enough time finding DOT-rated 4.00-8 tires for the KV so I’m not about to try finding street-legal tires for a shop vac.
My lawn tractor has almost 4x the hp (but it still can’t go anywhere near that fast!)
Have you tried contacting the United States Lawn Mower Racing Association? They may be able to provide some tech tips.
http://www.uslmra.com/
You win
Decades ago, got off a flight to Detroit and the rental car folks put me in a Pontiac LeMans. No, not the real LeMans. I found myself in a 3-cylinder Korean-made abomination GM tried to inflict on the public. And then I had to brave the Detroit area freeways, where anything doing less than 70 is a serious impediment to traffic.
1978 IH Scout II Traveller w/ 3.3 Chrysler/Nissan diesel, normally aspirated. About 80 snarling horsepower trying to push 4000lbs of Scout around does not make for an enjoyable driving experience.
I had, at the time, a 1980 Scout II with the turbocharged(100hp) version of that motor, and while slow, it was tolerable to drive if you powershifted every gear and never let your foot off the floor, but this non-turbo version was a whole different ballgame when it came to acceleration. I bought it and sold it within a month, which I came to regret, as it was a clean version without obvious rust. But holy shit was it slow.
I had a ’94 Suzuki Sidekick JLX, which Google tells me had ~95HP. It would have been tolerable with a 5spd, but with the automatic it was molasses slow. On long freeway grades I was barely able to pass tractor-trailers.
Not in terms of power or power:weight ratio, but a rental 2016 Kia Rio. After the throttle hesitation and the transmission hesitation and the rpm eventually got over 3500 rpm, it would finally start to move, though not with much enthusiasm. It was the only car I’ve driven where I felt sure I was going to be killed because the POS couldn’t get out of its own way. I’ve driven cars with significantly worse power:weight ratios that felt perfectly fine. Only cars that felt worse were ones in the process of breaking down.
So many good reponses on this so far, and for those who have mentioned a 1980s diesel vehicle… (VW, GM, Ford, etc..) that’s gotta be up there for most underpowered, especially the GM diesel cars. The V8 diesels were slow enough… but they did put the V6 diesel in some of the larger/heavier (longitudinal) cars (G-bodies I think) so that might be the worst of the worst.
Along those lines, I think that the most underpowered car/vehicle I’ve ever driven was a military HMVEE. Because when I think underpowered I mean underpowered to the point of being dangerous… and when I drove one my first thought was “how in the hell is someone supposed to out-run a dangerous situation in this”… and it was one with zero armor on it… so the armored-up versions would probably be unbeliveably slow.
I’m not a veteran, I just had the chance to drive one around in muddy fields/dirt roads once. I’m very curious to hear the opinions of those who were/are in the military that had to drive these around often, especially the heavier versions.
My parents had an ‘82 Cimarron with the 1.8/autotragic. It was sheer misery. I didn’t even mind the rest of the car; they had a Citation before that and I drove an ‘85 Celebrity V6 through college so I was used to ‘80s GM/Fisher-Price fit and finish. The Cimarron’s leather interior felt like a step up (well, half a step anyway). But the mechanical sadness when you stepped hard on the accelerator was just overbearing.
1975 L-48 C3 Corvette. Just an outright dog of a car. Probably the nadir of ‘Vette production that continued into the eighties. The smog stranglers choked this thing down to 165 horsepower. A 2.73:1 rearend did allow a sub 8-second 0-60 dash (on a good day), but come on, this was a Corvette. Only had it for a summer, but hated it. Found myself humming Carly Simon’s “Anticipation” every time I buried the throttle in this pig. Throw in the plastic cockpit and shitty mileage and it was just a joy.
Years ago I regularly drove my moms 90 hp Pontiac 6000.
And guess what? I had absolutely no trouble keeping up with traffic, highway driving, passing, onramps, etc.