Drag racing usually involves two cars pitted against each other in a straight line, with the winner being the driver that ends up with the best time at the finish line. The classic take, as learned from America, involves the quarter mile distance. But this European event featured a slightly different kind of racing, one that swaps the best time for the highest speed achieved during the run.
Because of the rule change we might expect a few surprises here and there, though seeing an old-ish Audi 100 beat a Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door 63S and not one, but two Nissan GT-R beasts was arguably a bombshell...
Looks can be deceiving, as the video (embedded below) from the Auto Addiction YouTube channel clearly shows – because we are not dealing with ordinary cars. Not the beaten-down saloon from Ingolstadt (one can see the rust stains on the trunk lid!), nor the Japanese or its fellow German high-performance machines.
According to the description, these are actually fairly on the same power level, with the Audi 100 having been through a sleeper treatment that lends it no less than 760 hp – and you can clearly see the quattro setup has to muster its entire will to cope with the added oomph (the rear-end drops during gear changes are absolutely delicious).
During the first run, this sleeper executive saloon that last had its glory days during the early 1990s shows a bit of weakness as it loses the start to its modern German counterpart from another brand, the AMG GT 63S, which exhibits better control over its rumored 750 hp. Still, as you can see in the attached gallery, because of the highest-speed format it actually wins the inaugural trial.
With the driver and car properly warmed up, the 100 starts to eat up the competition on the tarmac, with a couple of 740 hp Nissan GT-Rs coming up next. It is obvious the duo is feeling better and better each passing run, as the 100 ends up with both times that approach the AMG’s outing and ever higher top speeds.
Check out all of them in the attached gallery and wonder alongside us if things would have been much more different if this was a regular quarter mile drag race...
Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution. Full profile
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