Forget about buying a sportscar to take to the Nurburgring, what you need is an average family car, built on a budget in the Czech republic. What? This editor has trouble believing what he's saying.
The guys at AutoForum just can't get enough of their Skoda Rapid 1.2 TSI test car. They've taken it to the dyno and found the 1.2-liter engine which was supposed to make 105 PS actually makes 114 PS and 195 Nm. After that, they found it tops out at 220 km/h under good conditions.
But really takes the cake. An experience driver is put behind the wheel and manages to do an impressive 9:17 Bridge to Gantry lap of the Nurburgring. Two attempts were done, both under less then ideal conditions, with traffic and crashes taking place. AutoForum say that under ideal conditions, the car would actually do 9:10.
Of course, numbers mean nothing, so we have to put them into perspective. A quick check of the Nurburgring lap times tells us the Toyota GT 86 and Fiat Grande Punto Abarth esseesse have set a time of 9:09, just 8 seconds faster than this family car built by Skoda.
Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida. Full profile
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