There are many ways to judge the speed and performance of a car: lap times, horsepower numbers, a quarter mile, gram-cash. But a good general metric has always been the power / weight ratio. That’s why underpowered race cars are faster than their street counterparts, and that’s why a 495-hp Chevy Corvette can keep up with a 707-hp Dodge Challenger Hellcat. In Europe, we generally get the ratio in horsepower per ton, but here in the US The easiest way to visualize the figure is in pounds per horse, as each Lexus LC500 horse has 9.23 pounds to carry. Less weight is obviously better. Later you will see the best car of all brands in terms of power and weight, although it will not tell the whole story. The MX-5 is Mazda’s best power-to-weight car, but it lands pretty low on this list. Still, we all know how much fun it is to drive that car.
We leave Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren, Koenigsegg, Pagani and some other exotic mega-buck cars because, if you are buying one of those, you are already in good shape, in terms of power and weight. But without further ado, this is the best car from each brand when ranked by power to weight.
