Which Cars Are Most Guilty Of Looking Way More Powerful, Fast, Or Capable Than They Actually Are?

Aa Looks Fast Is Slow Copy
ADVERTISEMENT

“Don’t let your mouth write a check your ass can’t cash!” is a taunt you’ve hopefully never heard outside of television (it originated with Flip Wilson, what?), and it always struck me as weird. It means “don’t say fighting words you can’t back up with fighting skill,” but in that case shouldn’t the saying be, “Don’t let your mouth write a check your fists can’t cash”? I can’t say I’ve ever seen a fight that involved battling buttocks, but maybe it’s a regional thing. As for check-writing and ass-cashing with cars, it’s styling that scribbles out the checks and performance that does the cashing–be it in the form of sublime handling, prodigious power, terrain-taming capability, or superior luxury swaddling. Some cars and trucks live up to the expectations set by their sheetmetal quite admirably. See virtually every supercar and most scooped and spoiler’d hot-rod versions of solid-performing sport sedans and coupes from the big brands. And Jeeps of the Wrangler persuasion, and Broncos of the not-Sport variety–with those, what you see actually is what you get. However … 
Dmc Bricklin

There are plenty of cars currently for sale and many, many machines of the past that wrote some downright extravagant checks and absolutely did not deliver the cold, hard cash of a suitably exciting/capable/luxurious driving experience. Suspects that immediately spring to mind are the hobbled C3 Corvettes that were foisted onto mustachioed men and disco ladies of the mid-70s; the very sexy Bricklin SV-1 that was so slow Time‘s Dan Neil proclaimed, “This thing couldn’t outrun the Rose Bowl Parade;” and the wonderful, terrible DeLorean DMC-12. Seriously, John Z, a Peugeot/Renault/Volvo-sourced 130 horsepower SOHC V6? Sure, we know you had much bigger dreams for the DMC-12 and we get why that lump landed in there, but still–blech.

Now you tell us: which cars are most guilty of looking way more powerful, fast, or capable than they actually are?

To the comments!

About the Author

View All My Posts

125 thoughts on “Which Cars Are Most Guilty Of Looking Way More Powerful, Fast, Or Capable Than They Actually Are?”

    1. Twins! I’ve got a GT86.

      That car does not need two 3” tail pipes as standard.

      We do all our road trips in it and my other half still can’t get past it looking impractical while having more luggage space than her sensible Suzuki Swift and getting 47mpg (UK).

      I’m sick of explaining to non car people that it’s famously slow and to Google it.

      Wonderful car for throwing around twisty roads though.

      1. My betterhalf drives a Crosstrek so she wins the practicality challenge. She’s got it in her head that we can’t go grocery shopping in the BRZ despite us doing it numerous times and the groceries all fitting in the trunk and occasionally the back seat as well. That trunk opening is really small though, I’d kill to have a rear hatch on that car, and t-tops, and a turbo 😉

      1. My HF got the highest fuel mileage of any car I have driven but I needed to redline the engine to get up to freeway speed. Still, (slow car fast = fun) and it was a hoot to drive in the twisties.

    2. I’ve had both, and the mk1 had the performance of a tiny sportscar, which is just what it looked like.

      The mk2 was faster, even the NA one.

      This might be a UKvsUS thing because over here we didn’t have cheap cars with big engines to make speed accessible.

  5. 100% the Honda CRZ. Looks like it should be a GTI rivaling hot hatch, or at least a modern, tuner-friendly Civic DX replacement. Instead it was a less practical, half the doors, half the seats version of the Fit with barely 130HP

    1. It makes a great first car for a teenager because it looks the business, but it’s slow AF and they can’t pile a bunch of their peers inside. It also gets decent gas mileage, and the hatch makes it very practical for sports stuff, and/or moving to college.

  6. I’ve long thought it would be jolly fun to buy a nice example of the worst malaise era Corvette then show up at all the Corvette Club events and be all up about being “One of the Guys”. “Hi..uh..Lew..yeah ..uh..nice…car”

    1. I briefly considered getting a disco Vette for a toy recently but picked up something else instead. Sure they are bog slow by today’s standards but being powered by a SBC means it is super easy and relatively cheap to crank up the power to reasonable or unreasonable levels. I had found a pretty decent price on a car with a perfect red interior and just the right amount of exterior patina, but it was a few hour drive away and ultimately didn’t go take a look at it before it dropped off of craigslist.

    3. Based on the cars from the Corvette Club that show up at my local parades, you’d fit right in. Assuming your spouse is waving at the crowd with giant Mickey Mouse gloves, that is.

  8. My ’77 Monza Spyder has spoilers and graphics and makes (made?) all of 145hp from the 305. I’m not sure how many horses are still in there, but the 4 barrel and aluminium manifold don’t appear to have wrangled any extra.

      1. Best looking US small car ever. I’ve wanted to drop a warmed-over Buick Turbo V6 and a T-5 in one for years… if I can ever find one that’s not rusted in half, smashed up, made into an 1/8th-mile car, or all three.

  9. Also 1980’s Cadillacs got me thinking of a new catergory:

    What cars are quicker when towed on a wrecker or flatbed? Off the top of my head

    HT4100 Cadillacs
    240D Mercedes
    Diesel rabbit
    Diesel Chevette
    6.2 diesel Chevy pickups and Hummers(if not being towed by another hummer)
    Maybe 350 Olds diesel Buicks/Olds/Caddies.

    Gotta remember a wrecker in the 1980’s was a c3500 dually Chevy truck. With 250hp/400lb ft of torque, 454 cubic inches of big block goodness. Probably had something like a 4.10 rear gear in the back. Unloaded probably one of the faster rigs on the road back in the late 70’s/80’s

  10. 1985 Subaru xt. Preteen me thought those were the coolest looking space wedge cars ever. Later in life I got to ride in one and it was the saddest slowest 97hp I ever witnessed. Not sure if the turbo version was hecka better (112 hp). But still gets my vote due to soul crushing disappointment…

    1. I bought an 87 XT ( 4 cylinder 5mt) from a guy who couldn’t quite get the dual timing belts done correctly. My first OHC boxer, first fuel-injected. It looked fast—but my sister’s carbureted OHV 84 GL was consistently faster at auto crosses.
      Can’t believe I didn’t mention that one

  11. 1980s Monte Carlo SS. 305 cubic inches, computer controlled four barrel carburator, 180 rip roaring horsepower.

    What makes this all the more maddening is you could get the 230hp “TPI” fuel injected engine in a Camaro or Corvette but not a Monte Carlo. Those were fast cars for their times, low 14 second quarter mile et’s.

    Also maddening that GM didnt stuff that engine under the hood of the Cadillac Brougham(or the Regal turbo six) Cadillac is supposed to be your top of the line offering and man you had probably the worst engine lineup in the entire automotive industry in the 80’s Cadillacs

    1. Bingo. I think you and I had this conversation at one point, but to also pre-emptively address the yeah but point that eventually comes up, the looks promised a hotrod blast off the line, not a road racer wind-up.

      2. Agreed: your logical brain knows. But, when you see rows of them at Duncan, they call to something in your hindbrain-something primitive. Hackles rise.
        I do not want to drive one and have that illusion viscerally shattered.

        1. I drove a Honda Beat and it didn’t feel slow, it felt frantic. The speed scales down to the size of the car, so the trick is to not drive them in traffic or on wide straight roads.

  14. 2nd Gen Honda Prelude. Loved that car, handled really well, practical, but not enough balls to back up the profile.

    87 Nissan Pulsar. Looked the business, slowwwwww. Made even worse with the air conditioning.

    Fiat 124 Spider (circa 1978 or so).

    Base engined HHR. Cool looks, and its siblings could get out of their own way at least. Base engine? 3rd gear, floored going uphill at 38 miles per hour.

    1. We had a Pulsar in the late 90’s right before I could drive. Sold it to a school buddy as his first dirt track racer. Almost 30 years later, he is still racing as a semi-pro late model.

    2. A friend had a ’98 (first generation, before the Great Value Celica refresh) – 140 HP two-liter, five-speed – and it was actually kinda quick for what it was. The same engine in a second-gen would likely be more disappointing, and the second-gens certainly looked more like serious sporty cars.

    3. As a Tiburon owner I feel this one too much, mine is the 2.0L 4cyl Beta II and it leaves a lot to be desired in the performance department. Pretty reliable though

  16. Modern pickups. Even lower models are all big and aggro and macho and look like they’d be capable off-road, but then you see that the ground clearance is laughable, visibility is terrible, and the “looks” are writing a check the truck can’t cash. You can’t take a modern stock truck off-road unless you option it with an expensive off-road package, which only barely nets ground clearance close to what base model 4x4s were achieving 25 years ago.

    And get off my yard.

  19. Digging into the ’80s, Ford EXP.

    Mercedes nailed it last week with her “styling that looked like you described a Mustang over the phone to someone” assessment, but I’ll add…it was even an honest-to-god two-seater, from Ford of all people. Talk about false advertising.

  20. “No, its 0-60 time is slower than any minivan for sale today.”

    “No, I don’t take it racing.”

    “No, just a 4-cylinder in here. Less displacement than some motorcycles, too”

    “No, keeping it fueled isn’t expensive. 87 octane and I get 32mpg.”

    -Me, explaining my NA6 Miata to non-car-folk who assume Red Sports Car = Fast.

      1. Shhhhhh. If you say it too loud, rootwyrm materializes in a big puff of purple smoke with 3,000 words about how the engine designations are slightly different, leading to massive but nuanced differences in performance, reliability, and tunability.

        1. I like the idea that Autopian has its own cryptids who materialize for very specific topics. Toecutter for weight/drag coefficient/energy consumption, v10omous to defend the honor of giant pickups, etc etc

  22. 1986 Ford Taurus. It was a sensation when introduced. Style wise, it looked ten years ahead of other sedans. Car magazines were disappointed when the performance didn’t match the looks but for a few years it seemed that every other car on the road was a Taurus.

  23. Ford Mustang II King Cobra has to be up there. 5.0L V8, but 140HP. Woof.

    3rd generation Camaro with the Iron Duke. Super yikes.

    I think the original Pontiac Fiero was 93HP? 0-60 in the 10+ range?

    There was a 1.6L Hyundai Veloster with a 0-60 of near 11 seconds.

  24. Thank you for blessedly omitting the Mondial from your own short list, unlike the endlessly recycled clickbait slideshows (even when they offer caveats like “they got better”).

    1. I don’t think the Mondial really meets the criteria, at least for me.

      It never actually seemed to look that fast, I mean relative to other Ferraris; it always looked like Ferrari’s attempt at a boulevard, er, strada cruiser.

    2. I was looking for the Karmann Ghia to be nominated (VW really leaned into it being not as quick as it looked for advertising), but the SP2 is even better.

Leave a Reply