The rule of Godzilla resumes

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.

In 2013, Nissan returned to the top spot once again with the 397kW/628Nm GT-R Track Pack with a decent time of 3.47 sec. Ironically the 390kW/612Nm model was fractionally faster in 2011 in 3.43 sec. At the end of this series of looking back on all the cars I have road tested over the years, I will get into the detail of how road test data can be affected by a massive number of variables.

Audi’s super sexy 404kW/540Nm of howling naturally aspirated V10 precision in the R8 did a 3.95 sec run in upgraded Plus guise and was followed by the polar opposite full house 420kW/697Nm BMW M6 Gran Coupe with a 4.27 sec.

Mercedes-AMG’s C63 Coupe Black Series was the most powerful version of the soulful 6.2-litre naturally aspirated car that I got to test before the era of turbocharged C63s hit the world. This still very sought after Black Series made a BMW M3-beating 380 kW of power and 620Nm of torque and ran a time of 4.73 sec.

Two-thousand-and-thirteen also saw the debut of Volkswagen’s Golf VII GTI, and for fear of sounding like a stuck record, this 162kW/350Nm hot hatch punched way above its weight once again and took no prisoners. It took care of Renault Megane’s more powerful 195kW/360Nm Sport Red Bull RB8 with a time of 6.36 sec to 6.66. Opel’s even stronger 206kW/400Nm Astra OPC took a similar smack when it could only match’s the Renault’s time with a 6.66 sec run.

Mercedes-Benz’s 155kW/350Nm A250 Sport, which was touted as a ‘’GTI Challenger’’ was comprehensively dispatched when it ran a time of 7.20 sec. In fact, anybody who knew anything about performance cars knew that this would be the case. The A250 Sport was no match for the GTI.

Benz’s most potent hatch, the 265kW/450Nm A45, also entered the premium hot hatch war to fight the likes of Audi’s RS3 and Volkswagen’s Golf R. But its 4.99 sec run was not good enough to see of the previous year’s 4.75 sec run of the Audi.

The A45 was a car that I felt was never happy with our high altitude and massive 1.8 bar boost it was running through its 2.0-litre engine. It felt snatchy as you accelerated, like the car was pulling back the timing and boost to save itself in our unique and unforgiving conditions up here on the Reef. The Audi RS3 was the better option.

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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