When crazy power resulted in crazy figures

With The Citizen Motoring’s usual operations put on hold due to the Level 4 lockdown restrictions, 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 until we get the green light to put the latest performance models through their paces again.

After the crazy times with the supercar fest we had in 2016, I really thought that 2017 would be hard pressed to beat that. But I was wrong. Oh boy was I wrong!

If I had told you a few years ago that we would have two-tonne full size luxury sedan at the top of the times sheets with a run that came in at one hundredth of a second quicker than a Ferrari 488 GTB , you would have told me I was mad. But this is exactly what happened.

Mercedes-AMG’s 450kW/850Nm E63 S, now with the benefit of all-wheel-drive, was the car that shocked everybody with a time of 3.38 sec to 100 km/h. And this off the line pace was no fluke; this car broke the 260 km/h barrier in 1 000 m at the same time. Insane!

Second and third went to Porsche’s 368kW/460Nm second generation 911 GT3, and their now turbocharged 331kW/530Nm 911 Carrera GTS. with times of 3.43 sec and 3.62, respectively. But the damage being done by the large family saloons was far from over. BMW’s 448kW/800Nm M760Li xDrive ran a ridiculous  3.75 sec, followed closely by Porsche’s 404kW/770Nm Panamera Turbo at 3.78.

The performance world was now offering businessmen the thrill of super car performance on the weekend, while still allowing them trundle through the traffic to attend board meetings during the week.

The next two cars on this list also rewrote all the records, adding to the surprise 2017 was shaping up to be. Audi’s 294kW/480Nm TT RS Coupe went and ran an extremely fast 3.79 sec and even more impressive was that its family orientated sibling, the 294kW/480Nm RS3 Sedan, blew every hot hatch into the weeds with a sub four-second time that came in at 3.83.

To put this compact sedan’s effort into perspective, I was driving a BMW M4 Coupe at the time and from the word go right till top speed, I could not catch this Audi. The era of fast RS3s had truly arrived.

BMW’s M3 now got the Competition Pack treatment that saw the power go up from 317 kW to 331 kW, while the torque remained the same at 550 Nm. The funny thing was, this hike in power gained the car no time or speed benefits when it ran a slightly slower 0 to 100 km/h time of 4.27 sec to the standard car’s 4.01. And this was no individual thing either – no M3 or M4 Competition Pack car I have tested ever since has beaten its standard car’s numbers.

The other thing that happened in 2017, was the bakkie war was about ignite all over again. You would think that people would not care how fast or powerful their bakkie is, but you would be wrong.  Almost every guy that owns a double cab bakkie brags about how fast his ‘’truck’’’ is. So much so, that performance enhancement parts and options for bakkies are the biggest contributors to the income of the aftermarket segment in SA.

This bakkie that fired up this war was Volkswagen’s 165kW/550Nm Amarok V6 TDI. It simply destroyed all the competition with a 0 to 100 km/h time of 8.67 sec and an electronically limited top speed of 195 km/h. This is a time that would have got the better of many cars considered to be performance based.

But was this victory to be short lived? Mercedes-Benz was rumouring to be bringing a 3.0-litre V6 bakkie of their own in the form of the ill-fated X-Class that was said to be pushing out 190kW/550Nm.

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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