Stuttgart icon reclaims fastest crown

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 100km/h – for every year dating back to 2004. We are rolling these out over the course of the lockdown.

In 2014, Porsche’s brutal 412kW/700Nm 911 Turbo S went top of the pile with a fastest ever test time of 3.21 sec to 100km/h. No stock standard car has managed to go quicker up to now.

I did do a test on a private client’s 911 Turbo S that managed a run of 2.93 sec. This had nothing to do with my skills or lack thereof; the launch control let the one car off the line harder than the other. Simple as that.

The manufacturer car jumped to 20 km/h in 0.81 seconds and the private car in a mere 0.50 seconds and as you can see from the numbers above, this slight advantage off the line was held right through the sprint run.

Jaguar’s tyre-smoking, real-wheel driven, 405KW/680Nm F Type R Coupe ran 3.91 sec and BMW’s new 317kW/550 Nm straight-six turbocharged M3 ran a quick 4.01 sec to close out the top three.

The disappointment of the year was Audi’s 412kW/700Nm RS7 Sportback. It came in with a decent run of 4.35 sec, but for such a modern and powerful car it did not have a launch control function and this meant getting off the line was not as fast as the claimed 3.8 sec.

The Audi fans expected better, but the only way I could get this number was to left foot brake the car and hold it till it built some boost and thereby creating a fake type of launch. But doing this would hurt the car and after two runs, the brakes could no longer hold it stationary as everything was starting to overheat.

Maybe 2014 could be termed the year of disappointments, as I also got to test a Subaru BRZ automatic fitted with a supercharger from a local aftermarket tuner.

The BRZ was claimed to be producing 220 kW of power and 315 Nm of torque, but with a 7.60 sec run, this car ran somewhat slower than the likes of Renault’s 147kW/240Nm Clio RS that did the sprint in 7.04 sec, and it also came in behind the brand’s 162kW/340Nm Megane GT 220 that did the run in 6.64 sec.

Mercedes-AMG kept rolling out the last of the naturally aspirated C63 AMG models, this time in 373kW/610Nm, Edition 507 guise. But by now, the next in line on the list, the 206kW/380Nm Audi S3 Sportback was almost as quick with a 4.98 sec to a 4.78 run and BMW’s new M3 could blow its doors off.

Alfa Romeo made its first appearance in the top 10 with their 177kW/350Nm 4C Coupe that came in with a time of 5.01 sec. As loved as this car was, it horrible to live with on a daily basis, but it was fun when you were in the mood for being a track hooligan.

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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