Joyride gets speedster out instead of in jail

With The Citizen Motoring’s usual operations put on hold due to the current national lockdown, performing our usual high performance road tests are simply not possible. However, we have every intention of keeping petrolheads and enthusiasts interested during these times and for this we require the reserve gear.

I have been sniffling through my archives and discovered some interesting numbers in his detailed records from the last 16 years. For some light entertainment and an interesting glimpse into how things have evolved over time, we have compiled a list of the Top 10 fastest cars – in terms of 0 to 100 km/h – for every year dating back to 2004. We are rolling these out over the course of the lockdown.

Two-thousand-and-eight gave us cars in the five-second bracket, 2009 can us cars in the four-second bracket and at the turn of the decade, 2010 gave us two cars in the three-second bracket. Life was sure getting faster out on the road. Our first Porsche 911 road test came in the form of the Turbo model and it blitzed the 0 to 100 km/h sprint in a time of 3.22 seconds and an eye-watering 1 000 m speed of 256 km/h.

Second up was the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG with a time of 3.95 sec and third was Nissan’s GT-R in 4.23 sec. The GT-R would prove to be controversial road test cars, just like Subaru’s Impreza STIs had turned out to be. They never ever hit their claimed times. Some years they got quicker and others slower as the world went soft and demanded more refinement.

Two other interesting models in the top 10 were BMW’s X6 M in fourth with a time of 4.79 sec and Audi’s manual TT RS in ninth with a 5.11 sec run. Can you imagine going to the drags with a TT RS running a manual transmission today? Incidentally it was also the only manual car in the top 10. Times were truly changing.

Funny story; urban legend has it that a person was driving to their office early one morning in the same TT RS and happened to be going a bit over the speed limit only to get pulled over by the authorities. And the ‘’bit over’’ was unfortunately enough for them to not offer the option of a fine and the local police was summoned to arrest and take said driver away.

While waiting for the cops to arrive, a conversation was struck up about this brand-new little giant killer and while time dragged on because the police van was in no hurry to come fetch the speeding heathen, one of the traffic officers suggested being taken for a spin in the TT RS.

So said driver is alleged to have moved off in an orderly fashion and remained within the speed limit this time for fear of getting in further trouble. But this is a car mad country and the traffic officer was not impressed and gave the driver an instruction to give it horns.

That leisurely trundle turned into a brief, but full on suicide drive, which ended back at the same spot of the original offence. If the first number was a problem, the second reading would have resulted in prison food and love for a very long time.

The traffic officer is said to have been so excited by the TT RS, he described his experience in the Audi in such colourful language that cannot be repeated here. Perhaps he found religion during this drive, because he took mercy on the offender and let him proceed to work without any further censure. South Africa is a truly a special place to live!

Back to reality. Ford’s Focus RS was this year’s quickest hot hatch with a time of 6.02 sec and the quickest hot hatch tested up till then, albeit that it needed some 70 kW more to take three tenths off the Volkswagen Golf GTI VI. It also took care of Renault’s more track-orientated Megane Sport Cup that came in with a time of 6.57 sec.

It was also a tough time for a local scribe that tried to return to his car-modifying roots. His somewhat rough around the edges, Suzuki Swift 1.5 GLS, that was quoted as having more power and torque than the standard Suzuki Swift Sport didn’t quite produce the numbers on the road and came off second best in that battle.

A similar thing happened when he bolted a supercharger onto a Chevrolet Lumina SS Ute with a claim that it was producing a heady 400 kW of power and 785 Nm of torque, up from 270 kW and 530 Nm. The 0 to 100 km/h time was a decent 5.24 seconds, but from there it went downhill and ran a 1 000 m speed of 220 km/h only, which was a mere 7 km/h faster than standard.

I owned a SavSpeed turbocharged BMW 328i E36 at the time. My rated flywheel power was around the same as the supercharged Lumina, but my 0 to 100 km/h time went from 8.46 sec to 4.93 and my 1 000 m speed from a slow 180 km/h to a GT-R-beating 252 km/h.

Sure, my car was some 300 kg lighter than the Aussie Chevrolet, but that is what a real 400  kW does for your car. Needless to say, when this was published in our publication, and others, the scribe involved sent long letters of hate to all involved. All rather amusing as neither car was seen again and that was the end of this great tuning comeback.

Mark Jones is The Citizen Motoring’s Road Test Editor. All his data has been obtained up on the Reef using the world recognised test facility of Gerotek, located West of Pretoria. He has always followed the same test procedure and makes use of the world standard in road test data equipment Racelogic VBOX.

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