I know this to be true because I’ve done it, for decades, even, in a variety of cities across America. I lived in Los Angeles for almost 20 years, a city full of highways and freeways and overpasses and interchanges and hills and assholes, and my primary daily driver for that whole time was a 50 hp 1973 VW Beetle. More recently my daily driver for the past few years has been my 1990 Nissan Pao, and that car’s little 987cc engine only makes 52 hp, and, again, I get by just fine. I don’t avoid any driving situations, either: I merge onto highways with no problem, I can hold 70 to 75 mph for long highway trips, I can break speed limits in probably 75% of my normal driving situations (especially around schools), and I’ve never once been late or had to avoid going somewhere because my car has about a quarter the horsepower of the average car on the road today.
It’s simply a non-issue. I’m not saying more horsepower isn’t fun – of course it’s fun, that’s why I have my monster Yugo GV Plus, which makes a face-melting 67 hp around! I get the appeal of speed, but I also get the appeal of feeling like your going fast, but in reality you’re just not. But, that’s a slightly different point – right now I’m just talking about practical concerns, and less about fun. I’m just saying that I personally have driven cars with about 50 horsepower, and I have yet to have that ever be a limiting factor in what I can do or where I can go. Well, I mean, not counting, say, towing a camper full of marble statues. I mean in normal, day-to-day use. Now, I can already hear some of you: Jay-jay, you’re screaming, stop being an idiot! Those cars you’re talking about weigh, what, 1600 pounds? Damn, disembodied voice, you’re pretty dead on! Both the Beetle and the Pao clock in right around 1600 pounds or so, and I get that if you want, say, a more modern car with actual safety features besides floormats that will hold your expelled organs without spillage, then sure, what I drive isn’t for you. So, with that in mind, let’s look at the power-to-weight ratio of the Pao, which is about 30 pounds per horsepower. If we say that a modern car with safety features needs to be at least 3,000 pounds, then I think we can say the equivalent yes-you-can-get-by-just-fine horsepower number is 100 hp. A 3,500 pound car would need 116 hp, a 4,000 pound car wants 133 hp, and so on. These are still tiny power numbers by modern standards, and yet I still maintain that you can get by just fine. Maybe that’s the metric I should use: if you have a car that makes at least one horsepower per 30 pounds, I know, empirically, that you can get by just fine in almost any normal traffic situation out there. Will you be able to pass everyone? No. Will you sometimes need to merge or change lanes by ducking behind someone instead of darting out in front? Yes. But will you be able to merge onto a modern highway? Absolutely. Will you get where you need to go in roughly the same amount of time as anyone else in higher-horsepower cars? Damn right you will. Again, I’m not saying that power is bad or not fun, because duh. What I am saying is that anyone who thinks they need 300 hp to comfortably merge onto a highway is deluding themselves. Get a car with more power because you want it, but I’m not buying that you need it. Plus, look at the world outside of America; a VW Up!, a very modern car by any estimation, makes 60 horsepower and is right about 2,000 pounds, which is about 33 pounds per horsepower. But an Up! is admittedly pretty small. A Skoda Fabia is a bigger car, and you can get those with as little as 65 hp, and weighs about 2,568 pounds, which is 39 pounds per hp, and people manage to get by with that. It’s not just me! Again, I know all this because I live that 50 hp life, and I’m a happy man who can merge onto highways, drive legally on any road in America, and get where I need to go. So there. 2022 Chevy Suburban Curb weight: 5616 lb (assuming fuel included) 2x 150 lb passengers 30 lb/hp = 187-197 hp depending on if you count the passengers 15% drivetrain loses Coefficient of drag: 0.35 Coefficient of rolling: 0.014 estimate using 35 psi recommended tire pressure The lack of horsepower is a disadvantage at highway speeds though. Sure I can cruise at 65-70 all day in the right lane. No one really cares, but I am well aware that the car really has nothing left if I need to accelerate. Modern highway traffic moves FAST. You can totally get by, but if you spend much time on congested fast moving freeways you would probably want more power. Although a lot of this could be solved we actually put a enforced cap of about 75 on freeways. I do have a theory…I very much live in Trump country. Maybe those loonies see all the stickers and just assume “liberal” despite none of them actually being remotely political. I am a liberal, but I’m smart enough to not advertise that around here. If that’s the case a ’72 Superbeetle is the ideal car with which to roll coal at tailgaters. https://www.nature.com/articles/news.2008.889 Not controversial?!? Is one of them a Dave Matthews Band sticker? Up here a Trump or Yankees sticker would get your car keyed. Bless your heart. Problem is the road rage is beyond just the finger and yelling. Someone tried to cut my fiancee off in traffic a couple months back, but my fiancee wouldn’t let him. The guy pulled out a tire iron and was trying to hit my fiancees car as they were driving along next to each other on the damn highway. With 50 horsepower, you can’t get away from lunatics like that. Fifty horsepower used to be enough and I really miss when it was. I LOVE those people. It’s so entertaining getting right on their ass. They think they’re pissing you off, but you can just laugh and laugh at how mad they’re getting. Just make sure you have good brakes before you try it. Um, I mean, de-escalate every situation! Don’t be aggressive! 🙂 I’ve got another one for giving people the high beam, when they overtake dangerously close in front of me: “Oh, so I’m obviously invisible? Maybe this will help you in seing me?” My current car is the most powerful vehicle I’ve ever owned, it’s a 2006 Polo making one hundred and five mighty horsepower, and weighs just over a ton. I have no need* for more power.
- Hasn’t stopped me dreaming about turbo-ing it, wants and needs are different.
For example, many highways in California move at 75 mph plus, even though the statewide speed limit if you’re towing anything is 55 mph. Thankfully, most truck drivers ignore the 55 mph speed limit most of the time.
That’s NOT a good thing!
Well said.
The slowest car I’ve had since highschool would be my recently-sold 2014 Mazda6. It was 182hp for 3250ish lbs. So about 18 lb/hp. It was absolutely fine around town, merging on the highway, etc. But honestly, it was not the best for passing either on two lane country roads or on the highway. It definitely required the go-fast pedal to be pinned to the floor and you needed to give yourself a bit of time to get a head start.
Obviously the whole gearing caveat applies, but I couldn’t imagine driving a car that’s 30 hp/lb in any sort of busy downtown area. You could probably merge onto the highway but I’d be terrified to drive it on an urban expressway during rush hour. Well said. You might want to get tested – you might have contracted a case of Kinjavitis! Fortunately, it’s rarely fatal, just massively annoying & inconvenient. I dunno. My Mazda5 has 153 HP to move it’s 3422 lbs of heft for a ratio of 22lbs/hp and I find it more than adequate, even passing on two lane country roads, passing/merging onto the freeway up a ramp loaded to the gills with whatever. If anything I’d happily trade some of that power for better fuel economy. Moreover I’ve driven cars with even less power to weight, notably a Skoda wagon with a 90ish HP 1.9 TDI engine and a Peugeot 2008 also with a tiny 100ish HP diesel engine across France loaded with passengers and luggage and again found those perfectly fine, even for those same passing/merging situations. Hell my step dad used to rally race 38 HP Minis on the gravel and dirt forest roads of Sweden. He claimed that was the PERFECT level of power, any more would just have been lost to wheel spin. Maybe I’m just used to “underpowered” vehicles but I rarely find myself feeling an actual NEED for more power rather than thinking I could do fine with less. This brings up a question I’ve been wondering about. All that crash safety stuff does make you safer, but at what cost? The entire lifetime cost. There’s the manufacturing cost. Increased weight means higher fuel and brake consumption. Increased maintenance cost, because some of that stuff breaks. After all, I’ve never been killed in an accident yet, and that includes rolling a Microbus (when I learned that if you’ve very tired and approaching home, it’s a bad idea to think about how nice it will be to crawl back into bed). For comparison, US traffic fatalities/million people went from about 175 (in 1945) to 100 (in 2015). Such units include internal OR external sensors to report real time pressure and temperature to a solar powered receiver on your dash. I put a system in my car and so far IMO it’s money well spent. No weight penalty either. For example: My 117 hp 1.5L 5MT 2013 Fit Sport had 8 or 10 airbags, ABS, traction control, stability control, seatbelt pretensioners, was an IIHS Top Safety pick for that model year new cars, and passed all US crash tests of that year with flying colors. It was $17k brand new in 2013 and weighed ~2,520 lbs. (which includes 4 doors instead of two, being 10″ taller, having power windows and 16″ wheels etc) For comparison, my 124hp 1.6L 5MT 1993 Civic Si hatchback was almost exactly the same length and width as the Fit, had none of those things other than a single driver side airbag, weighed 2,326 lbs and cost $12,500 in 1993 dollars, or $20,152 in 1993 dollars adjusted for inflation. Huh, it sounds like you just designed my daily, a 2003 Camry. Personally I think in our current world your car should be able to do 80MPH comfortably on the highest straight section of road in the country with AWD or 4WD. Yeah, cars don’t need a ton of weight and or a ton of horsepower 99% of the time. Personally less horsepower in a new car is more appealing to me than more horsepower. The less power applied to the wheels the less likely they’re going to spin in place in the snow and ice. I just want what amounts to a new 4WD Subaru Justy with a manual and the ability to mount US street legal snow tires No thanks! BT, DT with a stock ’66 Beetle, a ’91 CRX HF, a diesel rabbit pickup, a ’64 VW split window double cab, etc etc. Try that on the South Street bridge I-76 onramps in Philly, where you get about 500 feet downhill to accelerate from a stop to 70+ MPH before you’re blindly dumped into the fast lane with zero merge area. For example. Or try and pass anyone on a two lane highway with cars coming in the opposite lane, or try to keep 70 mph up the Grapevine outside of L.A. in the summer with the A/C on.
And it’s not just that it’s miserably slow, it’s that being that achingly slow in those conditions can be really dangerous, mainly to you but also to those around you who aren’t used to deadass slow cars and what they will (and most importantly, won’t) do. Especially at night, in low visibility or inclement weather where the distracted rando playing with their phone on I-95 or the 5 in their big SUV is cruising at 80 mph speed and closes on your 50hp tin can struggling up a grade at 55 or 60. They both have 0-60 times in the realm of 12 seconds. It’s plenty for modern driving, in my experience. Or at least ban future posts from addressing HP requirements? Next you’ll be telling us we could drink only water. Or only ever use off-white paint. Or only have sex once a year on our anniversary. I mean…. technically. Sure.
