Viper raises stakes in horsepower arms race

As in every conflict, civilians feel the effects too.  The Honda Accord and Toyota Camry — U.S. sales leaders and the definition of a plain vanilla transportation for many people — have optional V6 engines rated at 268 horsepower.  Twenty years ago, the Corvette had 230 horsepower.  The Accord makes more power than that 'Vette with an engine that can meet California’s stringent Partial Zero Emission Vehicle pollution standard.

This rising tide of power boosts expectations of thoroughbred supercars, for which legendary reputations are no substitute for underhood power.  That means that Ferrari and Lamborghini are raising their games, with 500-plus horsepower increasingly seen as the price of entry, and more is better.  That is why the Ferrari F599 Fiorano’s V-12 churns out 620 horsepower.

The expectation might be that in the face of uncertain fuel supplies the wave of such cars will crash ashore and then roll back.  But in fact, limited production supercars sell in very small numbers and are driven relatively little by their owners who can easily afford to fuel them even with expensive gasoline.  That is why super-high-performance cars have evaded the sights of environmentalists, in contrast to the high sales volume, high daily mileage SUV family haulers.

But even absent political considerations, the expectation is that the recent forward march of increased power simply cannot continue.  There are practical reasons to think power of our most muscular machines will soon plateau.  The first is that before computerized controls the internal combustion engine was still a fairly primitive machine, with plenty of low-hanging efficiency fruit for engineers to snatch.  That tree has been largely picked over now, so the potential for additional improvement has diminished.

But even if power could be boosted further, it gets increasingly difficult to get such power to the road without snapping axles and driveshafts under the strain.

To this day the Viper wears wheel hubs with six lug nuts, rather than the usual five.  That is because the only hubs in the corporate parts bin when the Viper team concocted the original car that had a hope of withstanding its then-mind boggling 400 horsepower were from the company’s rugged Ram pickups.

Today’s drivetrains look more like they’ve been lifted from dump trucks, and the wheels seem to come from steam rollers, so it is not practical for sports cars to add much more power. And of course, such power is a challenge for drivers to control.

“There is a point at which the power becomes more than you can hold onto,” observes Helbig.  Where is that point?  “I don’t know,” he says.  “Maybe 800.”  Hmm.  That number is just higher than the forecast Corvette’s output.  Coincidence?  Probably not.

If 800 horsepower is the Viper’s final destination until the day when Star Trek transporters convey us instantly, perhaps we won’t mind too much.  Of course the electric power guys are promising motors mounted directly to the wheel hubs that could put down even more power.  So perhaps the fuel cell era will herald a new age of still higher-performance sports cars. 

Ford fired the opening shot in that contest, claiming a land speed record in August with a 207 mph fuel cell-powered version of the company’s Fusion sedan.  Today’s production Viper tops out at 200 mph.  “What we’ve accomplished is nothing short of an industry first,” crowed Gerhard Schmidt, vice president of research and advanced engineering for Ford Motor Co.

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