[rubyn00bie]

What average sports car?

Cars with more than 600hp or are tuned so well as to need less surely aren’t average. We’re taking at least $75k which really isn’t something an average person will ever be able to buy.

Sure you could probably build something with an engine capable of producing enough power— but I don’t think I’d want to do 200mph in a 96 Honda Civic.

[jacquesm]

Mine can, it's 20 years old and costs much less than a new Fiat. Reliable too...

If you want to buy a car like that new it will cost you a ton of money but second hand with a bit of searching you can find that kind of car easily, top speed of a car is irrelevant anyway, in this case it was simply a result of age, low mileage, budget and trim. And there is no way I am going to delude myself and think I am a good enough driver for speeds like that whatever the tires under it are.

[peferron]

You have a cheap, reliable, 20 year old Honda Civic that reaches 320 km/h? If that's the case I'm impressed.

Edit: not sure to which part of the comment you were replying, I probably misinterpreted it and you're talking about a sports car, not a Honda Civic. Still impressive but less crazy :)

[jacquesm]

Not a Civic. In nl there is a rule that you have to add 22% or 25% of the new value of your car to your income if the car is company owned. That's a lot of $ even for relatively cheap cars, for something a bit more comfy you'll be paying a ridiculous amount.

The trick is that there is another regime for cars older than 15, for those cars you add 33% of their actual value to your income if they are company owned.

There is a small set of cars that are still viable after 15 years, that you can find with low mileage and whose actual value is low enough that there is substantial difference between 33% of that and 22% of the new value of a much newer car.

Low mileage old cars tend to be of a few brands only, it would be very hard to find an old Civic with few miles on it, I just checked and the lowest mileage Civic that is older than 15 years still has 100K+ km on it.

[nl]

Note that the question was about 200 mph, not kmph.

200 mph is pretty serious speed and people are interested what it is.

[jacquesm]

Yes, I noticed. 320 KM/h give or take a little bit.

[nl]

So..

A Corvette or maybe a Porsche? Both seem a stretch at the price and age.

[forgotpassagan]

It only costs maybe 12k to put together something that can go 180-200. Early 2000 f-body with nitrous alone will get you to 160.

Sure the average person hasn't gone that fast but if you want to it's not that big of a deal

[spydum]

Basic bolt ons for a gm F-body will take you up to 155 mph before being electronically limited. Don't need nitrous for that. Pretty sure though beyond 180 would be incredibly hard.. That is a ton of aero force the cars weren't designed for, not to mention tires.

[justin66]

If you really needed to go over 180 mph in a GM car, you'd use a Corvette. Used ones are surprisingly cheap and I'd venture to guess that all you would need to break 180mph in a C5 (OOB they do 175mph) would be a taller top gear and some engine electronics, although there are obviously lots of engine modifications available. For a little more than the 12k the parent post mentioned (I'm thinking 15k), you could have an expert bore the engine out and get an extra 130hp. For less than 40k you could be driving a real monster.

These sorts of mods are common enough among drag racers, except most of them aren't optimizing for top speed.