Cost per mile an hour analysis
November 29, 2005
Speed Trap
Posted Nov 29, 2005, 12:39 PM by Jason Vines
Category: The Fire Hose
Interested in some speed? I can put you together with a good deal. But first, consider this burning question:
How much would you pay to leave a patch--a nice hot, sticky, smokin' patch of rubber that's testament to you car's prowess at rocketing you from a dead stop to roughly the speed of a frat boy chasing a beer keg?
A list of the Ten Fastest American Cars published by Forbes.com this week shows the price for a motorized jackrabbit ranges roughly between the gross domestic product of a small island nation to, well, a very reasonably priced Dodge Magnum SRT8 and three other Chrysler Group products.
Always vigilant at crunching the numbers on our trusty calculator we stole from Cadillac Sales and Marketing a few years ago, we decided to flyspeck the Forbes list so you don't have to. Here's what we discovered:
The three fastest cars are very low volume, super-expensive machines such as the $645,500 SSC Ultimate Aero with a top speed of 260-273 miles per hour or roughly $2,364.47 for ever mph. Number 2, the Saleen S7 Twin Turbo tops out between 240 and 260 mph and will set you back $555,000 or $2,134.61 for each of those 260 miles an hour.. But we think it makes more sense to compare cars that achieve similar top speeds to really understand how Chrysler Group speed stars provide our customers with more mph's for each of their hard-earned dollars.
Let's compare #4, the $141,245 Ford GT which tops out at 151 mph, with the three Chrysler Group cars that tied for #9: Chrysler 300C SRT8, Dodge Charger SRT8 and Dodge Magnum SRT8. Their top speed is between 165 and 170 miles per hour and their prices range from $37,995 for the Magnum to $42,692 for the 300C-that's an average price of $35,595.
Using that same average, the SRT8 vehicles cost a measly $232.91 per mile an hour compared with a bloated $935.40 for the GT. So….right away you see you can go faster in one of our speed machines for a lot less money and still have some dough left over to pay for the speeding ticket, or for the pants your passenger's spilled drink ruined. You're welcome.
Here's the Forbes.com list. Speeds are top speeds:
Fastest American Cars
1-SSC Ultimate Aero
$654,500
260-273 mph
2-Saleen S7 Twin Turbo
$555,000
240-260 mph
3-Evans 387 and 487 (tie)
$175,000 (387) $170,000 (487)
206 mph
4-Ford GT
$141,245
151 mph
5-Corvette Z06
$65,800
198 mph
6-Dodge Viper SRT10
$85,745
190 mph (estimated)
7- Mullen M-11 V8
$69,950
180+ mph
8-Panoz Esperante GTLM
$121,325
180 mph
9-Chrysler 300C SRT8, Dodge Charger SRT8 and Dodge Magnum SRT8 (tie)
$42,695 (300C), $38,095 (Charger) and $37,995 (Magnum)
165 to 170 mph (estimated)
10-Cadillac CTS-V
$51,395
163 mph