Imagine you attend a drag racing event in a Ferrari 458 Italia. Sure, your naturally aspirated 4.5-liter V8 doesn’t make the Prancing Horse around you the fastest supercar in a straight line, but you’d probably still laugh your Manettino off when seeing an old VW Passat diesel lining up next to you.
Such a race is exactly what we get to watch in the video below and we have to admit we’ve been taken by surprise when seeing this sleeper race attempt. Not only are we dealing with a B2 Passat, which was built back in the 80s, but it’s also a diesel.
Still, the people’s car manages to leave the Maranello machine behind, literally smoking it. Sure, the Passat does use all-wheel drive, but the 458 never manages to recover the lost ground.
These days, it seems like everybody wants to take on the Ferrari 458 Italia
With the majority of supercars having now moved on to forced induction, it seems like everybody wants a piece of the 458, simply because its atmospheric V8 doesn’t excel in terms of torque.
From sleepers such as the one we see below, to McLaren and even future 488 GTB owners, they’re all forgetting one thing. Some day when forced induction will have almost completely taken over the car world, the atmospheric 458 will be much more special than it might seem today, simply because variable compression ratio and other tech updates will make the current turbo engine generation appear outdated.
In his quest to bring you the most impressive automotive creations, Andrei relies on learning as a superpower. There's quite a bit of room in the garage that is this aficionado's heart, so factory-condition classics and widebody contraptions with turbos poking through the hood can peacefully coexist. Full profile
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