Andrew Frankel – Where Will The Power Struggle Take Us?

Even so this might not surprise too many of you used to reading about the exploits of motoring journalists in esoteric slices of automotive exotica whose titanium wheel nuts they could not afford, much less the cars themselves. But this car is not one of them. It’s a standard production Audi estate, called the RS6 Performance. And it really does have six hundred horsepower.

To me, a man whose love of cars was kindled in the 1970s, this seems almost incomprehensible. To see why, let’s take that figure and cut it into three, throw away two of the remaining chunks and leave ourselves with a mere 200bhp. In the 1970s that was a whole lot of power. It was more, for instance, than Ferrari could extract from the V6 in the back of the 246GT. No standard Porsche 911 got near 200bhp for the entire decade: you needed an RS, Carrera or Turbo for that.

By the time the 1980s were underway, 200bhp cars were far more common but, vast saloons aside, still the domain of proper performance cars. Audi made much of the fact that the original Quattro offered 200bhp, as well it might: in 1980 it was a number of which to be proud. And remember the original Ford Sierra Cosworth, that mighty, scary, bewinged monster that bestrode road and track in then 1980s? 204bhp. That’s all. Today Ford will sell you a showroom standard Fiesta that will produce 215bhp on overboost.

Of course anything that got above 300bhp was entitled to the undivided attention of all schoolboys and something of a slam dunk card if you found one while playing top trumps. As recently as 1983, the fastest, most powerful new Ferrari you could buy was its flagship 512BBi, or Berlinetta Boxer. It had a classic 5-litre, quad cam, flat 12 motor under its engine cover that at maximum revs produced 330bhp. Which is 20 fewer horsepower than today Ford extracts from the 2.3-litre four cylinder motor installed in that five door hatchback known as the Focus RS, yours for a smidge over thirty grand.

I can remember waiting for ages for the first proper 500bhp car to come along. No Lamborghini Countach ever got there, nor did the Porsche 959 nor even quite the Ferrari F40. By now I was earning my living driving cars but still thought a car with this much power would prove almost uncontainable. And, for once it turned out I was right. During my first proper trip in a Jaguar XJ220 the car was extensively damaged mercifully not by me, but a far more talented driver who was nevertheless and like the rest of us simply not used to the speeds at which unexpected obstacles – on this occasion a roundabout – could appear. Now if you want 500bhp under your right foot, you can find it in a Mercedes C-class estate. Or if a 600bhp motor is more to your way of thinking, they’ll have one in an E-class next year, or the aforementioned Audi right now.

At present 700 plus horsepower engines remains the preserve of the craziest Lambos, Ferraris, McLarens and Porsches but anyone expecting things to remain that way will find precedent is not on their side. Just 18 years ago BMW produced a 400bhp M5 which seemed sufficient to say the least. But the next one had better than 500bhp and the most powerful version of the current car the whole 600bhp. So history suggests very strongly the next one will have 700bhp. Sounds nuts doesn’t it?

Will it stop? In 1993, Ferrari’s standard mid-engined V8 offering, the 348GTB had 320bhp, less than half the 660bhp offered by its direct descendant, today’s 488GTB. Will power double again in the next 23 years? It seems impossible. But a standard, entry level Ferrari with 1000bhp within the next generation? Bizarre as it sounds, that I can see.

Part of me hopes we don’t get there. I would so much rather cars became lighter than more powerful. Primary school maths will tell you a one tonne car with 300bhp has the same power to weight ratio as a two tonne car with 600bhp and you don’t need me to tell you which would be better to drive. For myself I think the power struggle has already gone on too long and I will praise to the skies the first supercar manufacturer who manages to both reduce a new model’s power while improving its power to weight ratio.

But I’ve been saying this for years. The truth is that it not only sounds better in marketing terms to add power than remove weight, it’s also far cheaper and easier to do. So until some legislative stick or carrot proves sufficiently persuasive to turn the tide, the struggle will continue.