Quick Facts About the 10 Contenders for R&T's 2017 Performance Car of the Year
This week, we'll be testing ten of the finest sports cars that you can buy to determine which will be declared R&T's 2017 Performance Car of the Year. Ahead of the test this week, we wanted to break down the quick facts you need to know about our field of brand new sports cars. As a refresher, the ten are the Acura NSX, Audi R8 V10 Plus, BMW M4 GTS, Corvette Grand Sport, Jaguar F-Type SVR, Lotus Evora 400, McLaren 570S, Mercedes-AMG C63 S Coupe, Nissan GT-R Nismo, and the Porsche 911 Turbo S.
Least Expensive: At $90,260, the Corvette Grand Sport is the least expensive car in the test.
Most Expensive: The McLaren 570S comes in at $219,770, which is a lot of money.
Least Horsepower: This honor goes to the Evora 400, which has, yes, 400 horsepower.
Most Horsepower: The Audi R8 V10 Plus has 610 horsepower, which means it has 10 more than the GT-R Nismo and the most in our field.
Least Torque: The Evora 400 has 302 lb-ft of torque, the least by more than 100 lb-ft.
Most Torque: We have a three way tie, with the Mercedes-AMG C63 S Coupe, Porsche 911 Turbo S, and the Jaguar F-Type SVR all coming in with 516 lb-ft.
Lightest: Yep, the Evora 400 wins at a curb weight of 3,153 pounds. Funnily, that is just 36 pounds lighter than the McLaren 570S which has 162 more horsepower than the little Lotus.
Heaviest: The honor goes to the Mercedes-AMG C63 S Coupe, with a curb weight of 4,096, the only car heavier than 4,000 pounds in the test.
Quickest to 60: The Porsche 911 Turbo S wins this, with a run to 60 happening in just 2.5 seconds. The NISMO GT-R's time should be similar, but an official 0 to 60 hasn't been measured yet.
Slowest to 60: In what has to be a trend, the Evora 400 takes 4.1 seconds to hit 60, the only car that takes more than four seconds.
Most Popular Engine Configuration: Four cars have V8s, the C63 and 570S use twin-turbos, the F-Type SVR is supercharged, and the Corvette Grand Sport is naturally aspirated. Five have six cylinders, but that's spread among three V6s (3.5 twin-turbo in the NSX, 3.8 twin-turbo in the GT-R, and 3.5 supercharged in the Evora), one I-6 (the turbo in the M4 GTS), and one flat-six (the 911 Turbo S). The Audi R8 V10 is the only car with more than eight cylinders.
Most Popular Gearbox: We love manuals, but the majority of the cars here use a dual-clutch gearbox. The Nissan GT-R NISMO has six speeds, the 570S, C63 S, 911 Turbo S, R8, and M4 GTS have seven speeds, and the Acura NSX has a ludicrous nine speeds in its dual clutch box.
RWD v. AWD: Five of the cars are all-wheel drive (GT-R, 911 Turbo S, NSX, R8, F-Type SVR) and five are rear-wheel drive (Evora, 570S, C63, M4 GTS, Corvette GS). None of the cars are front-wheel drive.
For live updates during our test, be sure to follow along on Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook for photos, videos, sights, and sounds from the week of testing.
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