Fastest Sedans Under $50K

We love sedans for a number of reasons – dependability, practicality, safety…and any number of other boring traits. But now it’s time for you allow Scott and Kurt to fill-you-in on the newest, most-powerful and fastest sedans on the market – and all of them are less than $50,000!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Fast Track, a production of I Heart Radios,
How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome to the Fast Track.
I'm your host, Scott Benjamin, and today I've got a
special guest in the studio. It's my producer Kurt. Hey, guys,

(00:22):
I'm always in the studio, but usually I'm sitting across there,
So it's interesting to be on this side of the table.
You know what. I have found that, as you've heard
in the past, I've had a little trouble like just
kind of carry on this monologue, and it's much better
to be able to talk to somebody and have somebody
to kind of bounce things off of. And I think
that Kurt is somebody that I can talk to and
and we can really get some information out in a

(00:43):
lot better way, you know, Like back when I had
a podcast partner, it seems like it was a lot easier.
And hopefully with Kurt here across the table from me,
I'll be able to do that a little bit more
effectively and have a much better show for you, and
hopefully it's a little bit more entertaining. And uh, I'll
tell you, in the last few years, I've been more
and more of a fan of the Sedan, and I
didn't think that I would be early days. You know,

(01:04):
there's a lot of times in life when you have
different choices with with automobiles, and when I was younger,
I really like the coups. I like to like buy
the sports cars. I guess maybe like the the Honda
Civic S I that kind of thing or But I
also I had a Toyota SELT like a GT that
was a two door coup as well, and it was
kind of fun to drive for a while. But I
did eventually kind of come around the idea that I

(01:26):
needed a Sedan, and that was when I had a
kid for the first time. But actually, of all things,
I got an Audi A four and I really really
enjoyed that car. It was a ton of fun. I
held it for a long time, and uh it eventually
required many many repairs in one year, and that was
kind of the downfall the whole thing. But as far
as Sedan's went, that was a fantastic way for me

(01:48):
to kind of put both my feet in the water
and get excited about Sedan's because it was a great car.
It was fantastic to drive. It was as an all
wheel drive car, it was a manual transmission, five speed.
It was a long time with was about nine I
think is when I got it, and it was a
ninety nine. I think I got around two thousand one.
Maybe it's a couple of years old. And I really
enjoyed it. I drove it for many, many years, and

(02:10):
I went right from that into another coupe and then I,
you know, kind of a hot hatchbag. I guess maybe
a Civic s I Civic hatch back. It was just
it was a basic, the basic, but I loved it. Yeah.
Oh yeah, they're fun to drive, aren't they. I mean
it's a it's a blast and the real easy. Oh yeah,
exactly right. It's a lot of fun. And you know,

(02:30):
I ended up driving my Civic Asike for a long
time and I got rid of that and I got
a Volkswagen C seat. Now, the funny thing about this
is that I didn't think that I was going to
get another sit in for a long time. I mean,
I have an adult child, she's she's almost eighteen, you know,
ready to go into college and everything. But I've had
this for a little while now, so I did need
a back seat. I needed some extra space for people

(02:52):
I needed to be able to carry some friends around
or whatever and just have the room for carrying some
things on the weekends, that kind of thing. And uh,
and it's today and seemed to be the way to go.
But I didn't have a whole lot of money to
buy like a performance today, and I didn't have a
lot of money for like a luxury sdan or anything
like that. And I'll tell you my my it's again.
It's a Volkswagon CC. It's a two twelve, and it's

(03:13):
kind of in between, and it's a It's a funny thing.
I've I've thought about this many many times while I'm
driving it. It's not quite luxury, it's not quite sport.
CC oddly enough stands for Comfort Coup, which is weird
because it's a four door car. I don't know why
they called it comfort Coup. But CC sedan is fantastic
and I love it. The only problem that I've ever

(03:33):
had with this whole thing is that the car just
doesn't seem to want to drive in hot weather. Now
here's the problem, you Like, we live in Atlanta, and yesterday,
this is early September in Atlanta. The temperature gauge on
my car on the way home yesterday read one hundred
and one degrees um, so it's humid hot. We've got
hurricanes nearby. I don't know what the deal is with

(03:55):
this whole thing. The fuel pump overheats, it shuts down.
It's just a it's a disaster in that way. But
I do have a good time driving this car, and
it it's something that I didn't think that I would
ever really enjoy driving, Like I didn't think I would
really enjoy driving a sedan, but I do. There are
many choices out there, and later today in the show,
we're gonna talk about some of the most powerful sedans

(04:17):
under fifty thou dollars. Now, I know there's a lot
of qualifiers in there, and we're going to talk about that,
but I chose to pick for today's list the most
powerful sedans under fifty thou dollars. And there's a reason
I chose that price point, and we'll talk about that
in just a bit. But there's a there's a few
news things that I want to get to. There's a
couple of things that happened over the weekend, and actually
I'm gonna start off with news is not good news.

(04:39):
The first thing that I want to talk about is
the uh, the death of Jesse Colmbs. She was attempting
to land speed record. I think it was in the
desert somewhere, right, wasn't it. It It was out west, Think
it was in Alvoord, Desert, Oregon. Yeah, yeah, exactly. She
was out far, far out west somewhere. She was attempting
to reach something like like six hundred and nineteen miles
per hour in like a rocket powered car. She was

(05:00):
already the fastest woman on four wheels already. Um. She
was the host for a short time for MythBusters Overhauling
UM Extreme four by four. There was a bunch of
television shows and if you look up a photo of
Jesse Colmbs, you would probably recognize her almost immediately. I
would think. I mean a lot of people that are

(05:21):
listening to the show or you know, kind of fans
of that type of thing, and they already know who
she is. Tragic death. Of course, she was about thirty
nine years old, or she was thirty nine years old
when this happened. And again that pursuit of speed. You know,
we just did a It's very timely, I guess, because
we were just talking about the thrust SSC supersonic car
and the ultimate record that it had, which was what

(05:43):
like seven sixty three or something like that. It's crazy
like that. Yeah, it is an insane speed. It was
above the sound barrier. Yeah, we were just talking about that.
And then there was another death this weekend, um and
something that you know I had talked about on tech stuff.
I talked with Jonathan Strickland on tech stuff about Formula
two and there's a guy named Antoine hugh Bert and

(06:04):
he was only twenty two years old. He's a Formula
two driver. He's a French driver. Also passed away on
this weekend, and it's relatively unheard of. It doesn't it
doesn't happen allay that often because there's so many safety
features in place in Formula one, Formula to Formula all
of the racing series, actually the f I a series
where they are involved in an accident that generally the
driver is very well protected. This in this case, the

(06:27):
car was actually severed in two and it was extremely
high speed crash. And uh. And we'll talk about Formula two,
I'm sure in the future. And the third bit of news,
this is a little bit of a happier news so
let's let's kind of cheer up a little bit. This
is really cool. This is this happened only a few
days ago. And I don't know if you even know
about this, but the Bugatti and I'm going to get

(06:47):
this name right this time, Sharon achieved the fastest production
car speed record ever and get this, three hundred and
four miles per hour. Three three hundred four points seven
seven miles per hour. So they've they've kind of like
bridge this mythical. And I'll say mythical, it's not really
mythical because people have been doing it on the on

(07:10):
the Salt Last for a long long time. But as
far as like just on a on a road crossing
the three per hour barrier is incredible. It's it's just
like it's an unbelievable feat really, and manufacturer has been
trying to do this for a long long time. And
of course Kona seg there's gonna be many many other
manufacturers that are going to attempt to break this. Of course,

(07:30):
Hannessy is gonna try to break it, and and I'm
sure that you know, somebody will break this record. And
here's the strange thing. I'm gonna tell you a few
interesting little facts about this the speed record, if you
don't mind, if you can just like of a few
things without without without like, now, is this considered a
production car? I'm glad you said that. I'm actually really

(07:52):
glad you said that, because that's one big part of
this whole thing is that they claim it's a production car,
but it's like an early product version of a specialty
car that they're producing, like of course Bugatti. Is they
produced like these? Um I almost want to say it's
like boutique sports cars really because they only produce a
certain amount and there, you know, value to three million

(08:13):
dollars something like that. It's very very expensive car. And
this particular car is like an early production version that
has several modifications. And I have a little bit of
problem with this, as do a lot of people that
I've read about in some of the forums. And it
seems like the Sharon that they tested just a few
days ago. Again, it was like it was stretched one foot,

(08:35):
like the whole frame of stretched one foot, so the
body work is all stretched out. It's like a um,
consider it like a long tail version of the Sharon.
And then it was lowered. They also drilled some holes
in the panels, I guess, like the front faces so
that you know, like the the air flow is a
little bit better through it because here, okay, well we're
getting into some of the interesting parts of this, I guess,

(08:55):
and we'll just start here. When a typical jet aircraft
takes off, like if you're on you know you're going
to Miami. Let's you're on to Miami, you're in a
jet aircraft, delta of whatever you get in the airplane
about one hundred and fifty miles per hour. That's where
the airplane takes off. That's when it can achieve flight. Okay,
a lot of people drive a hundred fifty miles an hour, right,

(09:15):
Cars can do that, right. The problem is about that
speed of course, that's where lift happens. You're able to
you're able to take off. And the problem with a
car like this is that that car might take off,
and it's a true thing like it might take off.
We've seen that in racing many many times on racetracks
where cars are you know, going over just a slight bump,

(09:36):
a slight increase in in altitude, and the air the
car just air comes underneath the vehicle. List it up.
Car flips in the air and it might end up
in the woods somewhere or something like that we've seen
in the past. The problem with this car is that
you're going twice that speed. You're going twice the speed
of a typical aircraft when it takes off. And the
way they did this was I guess they I should

(09:57):
tell you where they did this, and I think it's
called the air Lesson Track in Germany, and it's Volkswagen's
high speed test track and it's the one that has
like you know, high speed banks on both the entry
and the exit to this track as well, so you
can be able to go into it fast and come
out of it fast. But in the middle there's this
incredible I think it's five point four miles long that

(10:18):
it's a straight track and you can actually see the
curvature of the earth in this track. It's that long.
It's it's like that long, that's straight. I think I've
fot of that in the past. Yeah, you probably have,
because I'm um. Top Gear infamously did a top speed
record run with the Bugatti Veron that was what two
d and sixty eight miles per hour. Okay, So now
so now they've topped that by what thirty seven miles

(10:40):
per hour or something like that. They've gone, They've gone
faster than than ever before and the same track. And again,
this is one of the advantages that the Bugatti and
Volkswagan have over the other manufacturers, and that they can
test on this track and do this kind of thing,
the car to perform on this particular landscape. Exactly. Yeah,
they're not They're not allowing Gona Saga or you know,

(11:01):
m Hennessey or anybody to come on and test their
car on that type of track. And the problem that
I've read about, gosh, I'm going all over the place.
I'm sorry, I'm a disaster today. But um, they are exciting.
I'm like, I'm jazzed about this. You could tell I'm
excited about this. So, like the thing is like the
car is able to go that fast because of the
facility that they have and they're allowed to do this

(11:23):
type of thing. Any manufacturer that is going to do
this type of thing has to rent a facility. It
just seems like there's not gonna be a lot of
opportunity for the other manufacturers to do it unless they
block off a certain amount of road in maybe one
of the western states, like I think Kona Saga has
done this in the past, where they achieve like two
seventy plus on some desolate stretch of highway out in

(11:44):
the desert. You know, they they sealed it off. But
the problem is, and I guess we'll maybe the same
with the the aer a lesson track, is that, um,
you know, you get a deer that runs across at
that type of speed, or you get a dog that
runs onto the track, or I mean, you know, a
pit or a cow or whatever you know, wanders out
onto the road, you're in trouble. I mean, that's that's
about it. For like a stone or something exactly right,

(12:09):
or you have to have a controlled environment exactly and
an air lesson is generally a controlled environment. And and
I'll tell you a couple of things about this and
then we'll move on, I promise. But um Bugatti is saying,
you know what, now that we've broken three d and
four miles per hour or three and almost three and
or five, we're done. The crazy thing about this is

(12:30):
that these types of speeds, air lesson is only smooth
enough to run in one direction, to run miles. Now,
if you look at that track. It's a beautiful track.
I mean, it looks like the perfect piece of asphalt.
It looks like it's incredible, like well groomed, well maintained everything.
But apparently at that type of speed, there's just no
way that you were able to run that type of

(12:51):
speed coming back the other direction. Now I don't think
that has anything to do with like the air speed
or you know, the direction or anything like that, but uh,
they said that it's just not to be able to
do that. And there are certain governing bodies that say that,
here's the way you did a world record for full
speed run, and it's typically two runs. It's one in
each direction, you know. And I think we talked about
this with the thrust S sc is that you have

(13:13):
to run one direction, turn around, and come back the
other direction in less than an hour, and it's the
average of those two speeds. Crazy enough, but they said,
you know what, we've We've broken three four. We're fine
with that. We're happy. They will always be in the
record book as the first one to break that record.
And finally, I'm getting to what I wanted to say.
I guess about this car, you know, we said that
it was modified that it was, you know, strength, It

(13:35):
was lengthened rather about a foot, so it has this
elongated body look. It has kind of like a um
a long tail look to it. Um It has a
lower suspension. It has holes drilled in the offenders in
order to increase air flow so that, you know, the
lift is reduced in some way. When the driver, I
think his name is Andy Wallace. I'm I'm stretching my

(13:55):
memory here, and Andy Wallace incrementally took the car up
fifty I think it was fifty kilometers per hour on
several several runs in order to like determine whether or
not the car was balanced correctly, if it was able
to maintain the downward force that it needed. So it
wasn't like feeling like it was going to lift, because
you know, as you start getting faster and faster and faster,

(14:15):
you just don't know how the car is gonna handle,
how it's going to react. But it took many, many
runs to get there. It wasn't something that was done easily. Now,
maybe one of the most interesting facts about this whole thing,
and I'll leave it at this, the tires in the car.
We talked about tires on the thrust SSC and how
like they can't really have rubber tires. Uh, this car

(14:36):
does have rubber tires obviously, and it's on a tarmac.
Has to have rubber tires. And in order to have
tires that can handle that type of g force, that
type of heat and just the rotational speed be able
to handle that without breaking apart, they made these tires
especially for this car. And shoot, I wish I had
the manufacturer in front of me now right now I don't,

(14:58):
but it was they were made by somebody that created
these tires specifically for this one run. And the weird
thing about this is, now imagine this. These these tires
cost thirty thousand dollars per set, thirty thousand per set
before they replied to the car, just in order to
check the integrity of them, in order to check to

(15:19):
make sure that, you know, the manufacturing process was correct
for for them, they X rayed the tires before they
put them on the car to make sure that like
everything was exactly what. There were zero defects in those
tires before they put them on the car. Now, can
you imagine the attention to detail that, you know, like
when they're making holes in the car. They probably didn't

(15:39):
just drill them anywhere. They you know, it's like they,
I'm sure it was a very well thought out plan. No, absolutely,
you've got yeah, you've got you've got You've got Bugatti
engineers saying all right, here, we've got this this car,
the Sharon Car, right, and and it's capable of zero
to sixty and I don't know two seconds or whatever
it is, two points six seconds something like that. It's

(16:00):
already this incredible world beating supercar. It's you know, made
a lot with a lot of carbon fiber. It's it's
it's just it's an incredible vehicle. It's already three million dollars.
Let's make one that's even better. Let's make one that's
even the tops that and how are we going to
do that? So it lets you know that the you know,
the the engineers, the people that are putting this thing

(16:20):
together are that that's the mindset of them that if
they want to like just push the envelope, they want
to go faster, they want to go farther. And that's
what really is is interesting about this is that like
they are really really pushing the boundaries of this whole thing.
And and I love what they're doing with it. I
think it's just really fascinating. Um. But but to go
as far as like once you start reading about things

(16:42):
like where they're X raying the tires before they put
them on, that type of thing, to me is just
ultimately fascinating. It's it's it's amazing, and I would love
to know. Um, you know, who even dreams up this
type of thing, you like, who says you know what?
You know what? I never, personally, I would never even
think of that. I would think, like, we get the
thirty thou dollar set of tires, great, let's put them

(17:03):
on the car the best. They must be the best.
You know. I know that they manufactured them perfectly, but
you know someone was saying, now, you know what, we've
got to check them. And that's going back to the
sad news you spoke about at the beginning of this segment.
When you see the numbers and you see you read
the article and you look at the car, you forget
about the inherent danger in this pursuit. These people that

(17:25):
do this are in constant danger while they're doing it,
and the tires are that that's what hits the road,
that's where it all begins. Absolutely, I would imagine that
that's in their mind too, you know, just thinking about
mitigating disaster of course, human being, that's uh that's doing this.
You know. I'm sure that when they were when they
were doing all this, they're thinking like, Okay, how are
we gonna keep Andy Wallace alive? Because you know, we

(17:46):
don't want we don't want Andy Wallace to die as
he's doing this, as he's creating this record. I mean,
that would be the worst news ever. Like, that's the
that's the worst pr evert when I get that, And
it's not just you know about pr it's it's about
the person, you know, they want to make sure that
the person is safe. Of course. I mean I think
that the people have a genuine appreciation for the people
that that put their lives at stake in order to

(18:07):
do this kind of thing and to push the limit
and to kind of it makes everybody, Uh, it makes everything,
I guess a little bit better. And you know what,
I feel like we've we've kind of gone off track.
But there was so much news happening this weekend and
I just felt like we needed to talk about it.
We should probably get into our list, which is going
to be the most powerful sedans under fifty dollars, and

(18:28):
we'll get to that very soon right after this break.
And we're back and you're listening to the fast Track,
and I'm your host, Scott Benjamin, and today I'm joined
by my special guest, Kurt, who is my producer really,
and you've decided to step behind the mic with me
today in order to kind of ease things along a
little bit have a conversation, because I think that's a
much better way to talk about these things. And we

(18:50):
both have a little bit of experience with sedans, and
I don't know, I'm probably more interested in sedans than
you are. I have a guest. I think you've got
a sdan right now? Right? Okay, what do have? Uha,
Toyota Corolla. What's your general impress And be brutally honest
here with me. You're you're you've got a Toyota Corolla. Yeah,
what do you like about it? What do you not

(19:11):
like about it? You don't have to go in two
in depth because I've got things about my car that
I like and I don't like and real simple, okay,
So reliability, it's it's pretty spacious inside. Yeah, Um, that said.
The design is kind of standard, kind of a plane
Jane type type design, and it's it's a mode of transportation.

(19:32):
It's nothing more. It's an a tow b car and reliable. Yeah,
it's like, uh, you know what I've heard. It's called
Kurt many times, it's called the bread and butter wagon.
It's like just the reliable car that you can count
on every day to start, get yourself to work, get
yourself to school, get yourself wherever you have to go,
and then get home safely. And uh and really no frills,

(19:52):
not not a lot of frills. There are some cars
that there's some sedans that do have some frills. We'll
talk about those two. Because there's some expensive sedans that
we'll talk about. I'll tell you what I think, well,
I think we like about saddans because I made a
short list here and we're gonna get to our our
list of the fastest sedans under fifty dollars in just
a moment, I promise you. And I don't think we're
gonna spend a whole lot of time on a lot

(20:13):
of details about these cars, just kind of a general
quick thing because there's so many different ways you can
break down the sedan lists. What I think we like
about sedans in general, why people like them is because, uh, first,
because maybe and not in any order really here, Uh,
there's economy. They I think they're they're much more fuel
efficient than maybe a big suv or truck or something
like that. They're a little bit sleeker, they're kind of

(20:35):
a little more aerodynamic, a little more fuel efficient. If
you want to take a long trip in them. It
seems like they're fairly comfortable that type of thing. So
comfort is another thing you know that people tend to
appreciate about about sedans, and I appreciate that about mine,
is that it's definitely a comfortable drive. I really like
taking long, long trips in my Volkswagen, and uh it's
just simple transportation that gets decent mileage, and I really

(20:56):
like that a lot. Performance. We're gonna talk about some
performance today, off course, but uh, I don't know that's
that's kind of a thing. Some people buy performance sedans.
Some people buy just sedans that are just like like yours,
that are more like um, just a two B type cars,
and mine is kind of in between. It's not really
one or the other. It's not even a luxury sedan.

(21:16):
It's kind of like it's I don't know, sub luxury,
I don't know what you don't call it. It's got
a lot of features that I think are really cool,
but it could have many, many more if it was
maybe a Jaguar or something like that. UM security is
another thing, of course that people like because you're able
to lock your valuables into a trunk, which a lot
of cars don't have trunks. If you look at a
hatchback doesn't have a trunk. A lot of sports cars

(21:37):
are are fastback designs or you know, um hatchbacks, or
maybe they don't even have a trunk, so you have
your valuables right at the open. So a lot of
people like the security of having a trunk to be
able to lock things up in h Safety is another thing,
and uh, I want to point this out because a
lot of people have kind of moved over to SUVs
and that's what their thing is, like, that's their wheelhouse
right now. But I would say that there's a lot

(21:58):
less rollover possibility with a sedan because it's the lower
center gravity. It's a little bit more dependable if you're
trying to and I say dependable I guess maybe a
little bit more flexible as far as like maneuverability, you know,
being able to make a left right turn real quick
on the highway if you have to, or if a
tire blows out, or you know, whatever happens to be

(22:19):
the case. It's a little bit more stable than an
SUV might be because it's a lot lower to the ground.
I know that comes with some obstacles for a lot
of people, you know, just not being able to see
as well or whatever. But I would say that safety
is one of the factors. And of course these are
loaded with safety features. I mean all the mandated stuff,
you know, the A B S and the stability control
and all that. But but they're loaded with the lane

(22:41):
detection software where you know, like if you go into
the other lane, like it kind of brings you back
or it u it vibrates a little bit. The steering
wheels assist type thing. Oh, exactly right. There's a lot
of that going on, and there's so great. It's surprisingly agile. Um.
There's a lot of practicality to them. I mean, you
could have five passengers in these things. Um. Of course,
with worridors allow people to get in and out very quickly.

(23:02):
If you have kids, it's very helpful, you know, to
be able to get people in and out, or a dog,
or you know, whatever the case happens to be. I
just think that in general, Sedan's have made a lot
of improvements over the last maybe thirty years. They've made
some incredible leaps and bounds and uh and a couple
of them that I think we should talk about it.
And the reason I picked fifty thousand, and I think
I've mentioned this in the past, is that the Kelly

(23:24):
blue Book price for an average automobile is around thirty
seven thousand, two d and eighty five dollars, which to
me sounds ridiculously high. I'm I'm a used car guy.
I buy cars that are at the most at the
at the youngest two years old, that have been like
maybe like least returns. They've got about thirty thousand miles
on them. It's I find that's kind of like the

(23:44):
sweet spot. The price thirty eight five for brand new car.
I mean, I get it, and it grows every year
by about three maybe four percent, And this is indeed
up about three point one percent up from about so
it's definitely growing and growing We're gonna get to forty
average US car price very soon. It won't take very long.

(24:07):
But anyways, I picked the fifty dollar mark because it's
just a it's a good price point, because there are
a lot of cars out there that are loaded with practicality,
with performance. It seems like there's more expensive stands out there.
They're less expensive stands out there. This is kind of
like the middle of the road. This is where if
you're going to buy a car for the average price,
this is about where you want to be. And and

(24:27):
the first car on our list here is the Subaru
w r X S T. I just just on a
gut feeling, like, what do you think about the Subaru
w r X S T I, because I've got my
own feeling about them. What I see, what I think
about them when I see them on the road. Subaru
seem to take a lot of different aspects into account
creating their cars. But this particular one reminds me of

(24:49):
the rally cars of the nineties early two thousand's absolutely
that sort of thing. Absolutely, And you know what the
funny thing is, like the design has changed so much
now it's a lot different vehicle. But I know exactly
what you're talking about. It's that blue car with the
gold the gold trim, and they sound very much the same.
They still sound like, you know, that that incredible Boxer

(25:10):
engine that they have. This one happens to have a
two point five leader turbo four cylinder engine that delivers
around three hundred and five horsepower and about two pound
feet of torque. But I'll tell you, like, on the road,
this car, it's stunning. It's a very beautiful car. It's
really cool. It still has enough I guess, I guess
outward design aspects that make it look really interesting. It's
not very plain. It's it's got a lot of like

(25:32):
little there's a little events here and there. There's still
a wing on the car. There's still some side skirts
and things like that. It's it's got enough design elements
that make it look intriguing to me. And the price
point on it is well below our fifty dollar point,
which I was surprised by because definitely in the pocket. Yeah,
they make cars that last a long long time, and

(25:53):
these cars are very very durable, and you would think
that we briced, you know, right up near the fifty mark.
But it comes in a way under. It's just under
thirty five dollars, So it's a it's a very um,
if you want to put it this way, it's a
very affordable car that's still under the average US car price.
So not bad really. Um. Moving on, we're gonna talk
about the Cadillac A T S Sedan. Now, I don't

(26:15):
think there's any surprise here when we say that. Maybe
it's a little bit long in the tooth. Yeah. The design, yeah,
I mean when when I think of Cadillac, I think
of fins, You think of the old old Cadillac. Yeah, well,
they seem like they were always at the forefront of design,
even through the seventies. You know, they have beautiful, long cars,

(26:36):
luxurious and beautiful, and now maybe they're struggling to advance past.
Like the look of that it's kind of tired. I'll
be honest, I'm kind of where I'm coming from. Well, sure,
I've kind of lost track of where Cadillac is because
it seems like all the cars are very very similar
at this point, and I know that's gonna make a
lot of people mad. There's you know, the electric version,

(26:57):
there's the A T S, the CTS. You know, there's
the CTSV, and there's a lot of different really interesting Cadillacs.
And if we were to do a show all about Cadillac,
I would probably fall in love with the brand again,
because I really was in love with the brand. My
my grandfather drove Cadillacs all his life, really, I mean
pretty much all his life, all of his adult life.
And they were always like the big, long, beautiful cars

(27:20):
and you know, like luxurious, and they weren't fast, and
they weren't, you know, anything like sporty or anything like that.
But I remember taking long, long road trips in those
cars with my grandparents and it was just luxurious and
it was fun and it was like it's like, so
you're sitting in a in a in a great big
couch in the back seat. Now, of course, these sedans,
I mean this is interesting because you know, there there

(27:41):
are six speed manuals, and there's eight speed automatics, and
you know they're powered by you know, three point six
Leader tuned the six engines that have three and are
in thirty five horsepower. They're very strong. It's a small,
lightweight car relatively compared to what Cadillac used to be.
They have you know, of course, magnetic ride control and
all kinds of interesting features. So they're are quick and
they're they're they're interesting vehicles, no doubt. But stylistically, I've

(28:05):
lost all comprehension of the difference in every different type
of Cadillac that there is out there. And I mean,
they just look the same as they have, Like the sts.
They stopped making it in two thousand eleven as a
four door car, but they started making it in two
thousand five or four. Yeah, this design carries that same badge.
It's just a long time to keep that. You know,

(28:27):
it's a little it's a little more refined, but it
seems like they're at the point where they need to
do something dramatically different otherwise people just aren't going to
pay attention. And I think maybe like the slab side
design and everything, it's it's great, it was, it's really
interesting to begin with, but they just haven't done anything
with it for a long long time, and I think
they need to move on, and I wish they would.
I mean, I know there are other luxury brands out

(28:49):
there that are doing some exciting things, you know, Mercedes
and some of the other higher manufact like more expensive
manufacturers that have more dramatic, better designs, I think, and
if Cadillac could kind of do something different at this point,
I think it would benefit them. I think they're they're
still making fantastic cars. They really are good cars. It's

(29:12):
just a matter of like getting past that point when
they when they release a new model, I can't tell
the difference between the previous model and this model, and
it's very very little different. I know that Cadillac can
do this, and I know that Cadillac will be back
with something exciting and new, and it will happen. It's
just it seems like people are kind of ignoring the brand,
and I wish it wasn't happening that way, but it

(29:33):
really is. Uh. Next car on the list here is
the Oud S four and the Audi S four. This
is a three leader twin turbo charge V six, and
I think in the past it had a V eight,
had a big V eight. They have gone down to
a V six and again twin turbo chargers on on
a V six still has three d and thirty three

(29:53):
horsepower and three hundred pound feet of torque. Of course,
that has the the all wheel drive Quadra system, and
I'm familiar with the Quadra system UM only many many
years ago. I remember I told you early on in
this podcast that I had a nine A four and
I loved, loved that car. It was so fun to drive.

(30:15):
I had it in Michigan and I was able to
drive it through any depth of snow that you could
throw in front of me. Really, it was just unbelievable.
The car would not give up. It was an incredible
system even back then. And then we're talking about twenty
years ago. This is a twenty year old car. At
this point, I would drive it on gravel roads. I
would try to make the thing slide, you know, around corners.

(30:36):
I would love. I'd love to take it out onto
like back country roads that were gravel and try to
just like push the limit of it. And probably dangerous
now that I look back at you know what I
was doing because all the trees around and lakes and
all that kind of stuff, But so much fun and honestly,
like that car held the ground so steadfastly that it

(30:56):
was really difficult in order to make it slide if
I wanted to. I mean, it was one when I
did get it too, and I could, I could push
it in the snow and make it really do you know,
some dramatic moves, but it was so much fun. It
was so solid, so dependable, and so it just it
just felt so right to drive, I guess in the
manual form even in the rain, Like you wouldn't believe

(31:17):
the confidence that that car gives you in the rain
versus like when you get behind the wheel of another
car that doesn't have the Quadra system. And I didn't
think that I would ever be somebody that was like that.
It would say, I can completely tell the difference between
this car and that carpet, but in the rain even
like I could tell the grip of that car was
so much tighter than any other car that I had
ever driven at that point. It was just it was

(31:38):
an unbelievable car. I loved it, and uh and I
wish I had it back. It was it did get
to be very expensive towards the end, and it wasn't
expensive to buy. It wasn't the price point that we're
talking here, because this one is just under the markets
around forty nine thousand, two hundred dollars for the brand
new version of this. I feel like a few of
these kind of cheap that ice point a little bit

(32:00):
just the fall. Mine was not that expensive, I'll tell
you that it was. It was half of this, you know,
less than half of this actually, as a matter of fact,
um at the time. And I was super proud of
it too, because you know, it's like the first, I
guess maybe the first real car that I owned. You know.
It wasn't like, uh, you know, the car that I
picked up off the used car lot that was really
crappy and allowsy and everything. This was like the first

(32:21):
one that allowed me to drive home overnight and really
kind of check out, and you know, it was it
was it felt like a real car purchase at the time. Um.
Just something different about that car, and I loved it,
and I wish I could gole back to it. But
the next car on the list, the this is kind
of unbelievable. It was the Jaguar on the list, um,
the Jaguar x E thirty five T and uh, this

(32:43):
is kind of an interesting entry here. The prices started
around forty two thousand six nine. It is a supercharged engine,
a supercharged three liter engine, UH with the V six
around three forty horsepower and about three thirty two pound
feed of torks. So it's a very strong car. And
the other thing is that you know, Jaguar is a

(33:04):
well known luxury brand, which makes it kind of interesting
that it's on this list. I mean, is this their
entry level? Entry level? But is this there it has
most inexpensive model. It has to be, because I know
that there are many other Jaguars out there that you know,
are well well up towards the hundred thousand dollar mark
above that maybe even Um, I've seen a bunch of
on the road recently, and I know that some of
them are are very very expensive. And uh and yeah,

(33:27):
you can expect to pay hundred thousand dollars for a
Jaguar that you know is at the top end of
the lineup. But for this one to get in at
forty two and to still be able to drive a
Jaguar not bad. I know they had some reliability issues
in the past, but I think that's that's taken care
of for the most part. I mean it used to
be that a long long time ago. They would say, um,

(33:49):
you know, if you're gonna buy Jaguar by two one
one for when it's in the shop for any British
car trade, then yeah, it well exactly that's any British car.
You're right, You're absolutely right. I mean now nowadays, I
think there that's a little better. Yeah, it's a little
better now. And I think that you know, when Ford
took over Jaguar for a short time, and I want
to say that was in the nineteen nineties, I believe
um some of the reliability issues went away. And now

(34:11):
Ford does not own Jaguar anymore, but the reliability is
still there and I think that they're definitely on track
to be a much more reliable vehicle. But to be
able to get into one for forty dollars, I mean,
I know it still sounds like a lot of money,
but a brand new Jaguar for that price is not
bad at all, and you can imagine that it's loaded
with a lot of luxury features. And you know what,
we're making some pretty good progress on this list. So

(34:32):
let's let's take another break here, if you don't mind,
And we're back and you're listening to the Fast Track,
and I'm your host, Scott Benjamin, and I'm joined with
my special guest, Kurt. Kurt is my producer, and we've
been talking about sedans and I think we're well into
our list at this point, Um, there's been a couple
of maybe I don't know about surprises so far, but

(34:52):
there's been a few that I don't know, just a little, um,
you wouldn't expect them on this list, maybe like the
Jaguar I think was one, and there's a few more
that are coming up that I think you might be
surprised by. The next one on our list here, which
is a list of the fastest sedans under fifty thousand dollars,
is the Ford Fusion Sport. And this may be the

(35:13):
first true sleeper car on the list, might be, but
it's you know, Ford Fusion. You wouldn't expect that, right,
This is this is a fairly common car, right, I mean,
it's something you see on the road quite a bit.
It is. However, and this is hard to believe. This
is Ford's quickest sedan ever they maybe not ever, but
Ford's quickest sedan currently. I should say that three hundred

(35:34):
and twenty five horse power in the sedan, which I
had no idea. I had no idea. I thought this
car was like a two hundred horse power just nondescript
vehicle that you see every day in the parking, you know,
very strange it has three horse power, three dred and
eighty pound feet of torque. What are people doing with
how much torque in a Ford Fusian todan are they?

(35:55):
Are they pulling stumps out in their yard or what?
I don't know. It seems like that's an awful lot
of torque for a car like this. And and what's
funny is like he used the same two point seven
leader turbo charge V six that the F one fifty
use as well as the Edge Sports so much bigger vehicles,
they have stuffed it into this little Ford Fusion Sport
and again the sport model. Maybe that's the that's the

(36:17):
key there. We see probably a lot of Ford Fusions
out there, but not a lot of forward fusion sport
cars out there. All wheel drive. I didn't know that either.
I had no idea that they were all wheel drive,
six ft automatic gearbox, which is I guess fine, that's
that's all right. That's what it seems like a lot
of manufacturers are doing at this point. But prices, if
you want to talk about price, it's it's still well
below the fifty dollar mark. In fact, it's below even

(36:39):
Is this the lowest I think so? It might be
thirty three thousand, four hundred and seventy five dollars. So
you're talking less than thirty four thousand dollars for a
pretty strong vehicle. And you're right. I hesitated to call
it sleeper because I want to say that, like, sleeper
is more reserved for cars that are just ridiculously overpower. Right,

(37:00):
this one is a lot of power. I get it.
But it seems like we could argue this all day,
I think, Kurt, But um, it seems to me like
when you get up to like the five dred horse
power six hunder horse power in a sedan, that's where
you get to kind of the sleeper. But then again,
a lot of those cars look fast, all right, So
we're getting to uh a little bit higher in the
the price point here with the BMW and you could

(37:21):
probably expect this, But the BMW three forty I, it's
got a three leader twin turbocharge in line six cylinder
horse power and about three two pound feet to torque.
You know what's funny, Look at this one. Look at
the numbers on this one far when that far below
below what the Ford fusion support provide, which is and
the price is a little bit more so we're talking

(37:41):
about a car that starts around hundred dollars, and you
know that when you start adding features to that car,
the price only goes up. Now the next one, oh,
this one, this one is probably this one gets my
vote as the best sleeper and on the list, and
I've we've talked about this car a few times on
car stuff and and uh, the Chevrolet SS. And I

(38:04):
think that maybe this is probably the one that I
would pick because it just doesn't look like much of
anything when it's on the road, it really does. And
the thing is, it has a six point two later
V eight and it makes four hundred and fifteen horsepower
and about four hundred and fifteen pound feet at work.
Extremely strong. But also it puts all this power through

(38:24):
a six speed manual transmission or a six speed automatic transmission,
and of course rear wheel drive only it's not all
wheel drive or anything like that, so it's a little
bit different. But a six speed manual, I think that's
pretty cool for a sedan. You know, on our list
here only a couple have that at this point. But
I do feel like this one is one of those
cars that you don't think much of it when it's
on the road. If you're next to one and you

(38:45):
see one really using all that power, you know, somebody
who really really pushes it, it's impressive. And I have
I've I've seen this, and I know that you've probably
seen the Pontiac G eight, remember the old Pontiacs Pontacs
gone of course, you know, years ago. But the G
eight sedan that they had, and of course the G
t o uh that we've we've talked about in the

(39:06):
past and car stuff. Both of those cars extremely fast,
kind of surprising fast. The overall looks of the Chevy
Ss just don't they belie what's underneath. Really, I mean,
you wouldn't think that there would be that strong of
a V eight engine underneath this this car, and it's
just it's it's a really cool package. I would I
would love to be able to drive one. The price
on them, however, is there's forty seven thousand reasons why

(39:29):
I can't get that car. You know what would be
really cool? And I know that Okay, this is branching
off from this and we'll get to the end of
our list here real quick. But I know that uh,
um Ford and uh, there's a lot of car manufacturers
right now, surprisingly enough, that are stopping automobile production and
they're just doing They're focusing on SUVs, they're focusing on trucks,

(39:50):
they're focusing on just sports cars. Maybe. So Ford is
one where they're just gonna build the Mustang and that's it.
They're gonna stop all other car production. So if they
were continue to build a Ford Usion and stuff the
Mustang engine into that car and it just as like
a special edition and you know, maybe they make uh
ten thousand of them or whatever it would be would
be a high number because it's Ford. You know, it

(40:11):
wouldn't be like five hundred or something like a boutique manufacturer.
But imagine if they were to stuff that engine into
the Ford Fusion kind of like you know, of course
Chevy's doing that with well the six point two Leader.
That's that's a version, a derivative of the Corvette engine.
So if if it would be kind of the same
thing to be able to do that kind of thing. Now,
I know the price would go up dramatically on the Fusion,

(40:31):
but that would be kind of fun to have them
in a little bit of a horse power work. Okay,
there are three cars on our list, and let's kind
of buzz through them kind of quickly. Here the Mercedes
mg C L A forty five Formatic. That's now, that's
a long name. I hope they don't try to put
that all on the back of the car, because they'll
put in different places on the back. It'll all be there.
It's gonna it's gonna wrap around the car. Um. But

(40:53):
the output for this car is something like three hundred
and seventy five horse power and three or thirty two
pound feet of torque. So that's that's more power than
a BMW M two, which is pretty strong. That's a
that's a pretty good point to begin it. Now. It
has a seven speed dual clutch transmission, which is I
believe automatic. All four wheels are powered, so it's an
all wheel drive, which is impressive. All right, So if
you want to get into a Mercedes on this list,

(41:15):
you're gonna, you know, pray almost exactly the maximum price
on this list, which is a forty nine thousand, five
hundred dollars. Now we're getting to the very very end
of our list here, and I'll tell you I want
to skip what is number two on this list and
go to number one and then come back to number two.
And there's a reason because I have a question for
our listeners when we get to this point. But going
to number one on the list, this is the Infinity

(41:37):
Q fifty Red Sport four hundred, and this one's a
little tricky because the Red Sport four hundred models starts
around forty eight thousand, eight hundred and fifty five dollars
for the rear wheel drive model. If you want to
go with the all wheel drive model, it does push
it over the fifty dollar mark, just barely though it's
around fifty eight hundred and fifty five dollars. Uh So,

(41:58):
again that's for the all wheel drive version. The Red
Sport four hundred, as you can imagine, stands for four
hundred horsepower and about three fifty pound feet of torque,
has an adapted suspension, and has all kinds of you know,
luxury features as you can imagine with an Infinity UM
seven speed automatic transmission. I hate to include this one
because it does go over the threshold, but again, if

(42:19):
you just want the real drive version does keep it
underneath it. But an interesting looking vehicle, it's not necessarily
the best looking vehicle on this list. I don't think
just my own personal opinion. I mean, I know a
lot of people have it, you know feeling and a
huge fan of Infinities. Look but there. But they are
staying true to their their thing, which is admirable, and
a lot of people out there love it. Seems like

(42:40):
refined luxury. Of course, you know, it's it's very luxurious,
it's very it is sporty, but um again, it's tempered.
You know, let's say, it's not like they've gone overboard
with it. And there's some Infinity models that I think
are a little sportier looking, of course, and people do
things to their car to make them look sporty or
you know, lower them and different wheels and that kind
of thing and make them look really cool. But for

(43:02):
the most part, I think it's mostly like a luxury
brand at this point. Now, this is the one that
was came in a number two in the list, and
and it's the last one that we're going to cover.
Um this is the Dodge Charger RT scat pack. Now,
the reason we're talking about the scat pack version is
because this one does fall underneath the fifty dollar mark. Now,
if you want to buy a Dodge charger right now.

(43:24):
They range dramatically in price. They go from something like
twenty six thousand dollars where you have to like the
base version with the V six and it's not terribly strong,
and it's still strong. Maybe you know, I'm gonna ballpark this.
I don't know, you have a note in front of me,
but three power something like that, up to about sixty
six thousand dollars for the hell Cat version of this vehicle.

(43:46):
Now we're not talking about the hell Cat of course,
that's the one that everybody wants, you know, and the
the seven hundred and seven horse power. It's it's an
incredible vehicle, it really is. But for under fifty thou
dollars if you want to go to if you want
to call it reasonable, thirty nine thousand dollars, so just
under forty dollars, so well underneath our our fifty dollar threshold,

(44:07):
you can get a six point four Leader hemy V eight,
which has around four five horsepower, four hundred and seventy
five pound feet of torque, and has an eight speed
automatic transmission. I see these on the road all the
time around here in Atlanta. There's a ton of these
uh scat pack chargers. I followed one just the other
day on the road. Um, not that I was being
creepy or anything. I mean, I was just following it

(44:29):
on the road. It was in front of me. Had
um a license plate that was you know, a specialty
plates said scat Pack on it, which is kind of cool.
Is blue. Uh, looked like the tires were like a
foot wide on every corner. It was amazing looking and
it looked like it and I know it hadn't it
just it looks like it's been lowered. It sounded incredible.
It's got that light bar that goes across the full
back end of the vehicle, which is really distinctive. And

(44:51):
you can just you can spot that car a mile away,
really you can. It just sounds incredible, It looks incredible.
Dodge has a amazing lineup right now. And we're we're
at the end of our list here, and I want
to ask our listeners this. And I've been watching this
for a long time, and I think they have to.
Dodge has been incrementally creeping up and up and up

(45:13):
in horse power, and I know the prices are coming up,
and you know they're offering these these crazy engines and
these hell Cats and the Red Eye hell Cats, and
you know the performance versions of these cars, and I
know there's some that are dragstrip only or track only
type cars, but I'm talking about street cars. This is
my question to you, the listener. When do you believe
that we're going to see a major manufacturer create a

(45:35):
car that is affordable but has a one thousand horsepower engine,
you know, a V AT engine that's a thousand horsepower,
or they go to maybe they go to a V
ten engine. You know, they might take that old you know,
that old V ten from the Viper that they had
and repurpose that in the Dodge Charger. Rather, so we're
talking about a sedan, and I don't mean a challenger,

(45:55):
you know, two to our coop or a sports car.
Something seems to me that that's that's very doable. But
define affordable for the listener. Affordable you say under fifty
or no, I'm not even gonna say under fifty because
you know, we're already at sixty six thousand for a
and a seven hundred and seven horsepower hell Cat version
of the Charger. So as far as affordable, and I

(46:18):
know it's all relative here, but let's say that it's
still under and I don't want to affordable. Let's say
let's say nine dollars but a thousand horse power and
it has to be a sedan. When do you think
that's going to happen? Because I feel like I feel
like Dodge is gonna do that, and once it does that,
it's just going to drop the mic and be done.
It's it's it's like, you know, once we've achieved a

(46:38):
thousands exactly like I'm you know what, We've done it.
No one else is going to be able to do
that again. We're done. Let's move on and and we'll
still make great looking cars, but you know, we're gonna
make them a little bit more affordable. And you know,
maybe they're only maybe they're only gonna have eight hundred
and eighteen horse power or what ever it is, you know,

(47:01):
some crazy number. What's is just ridiculous. But I mean,
we're talking about a seven hundred and seven horsepower car
and it's growing and growing and growing, so a thousand
horsepower doesn't seem to me like it's that far off. Maybe,
uh And if I had to put a guess on this,
gonna guess like five years because they're gonna want to
grow it incrementally and slower, you know, just slowly, slowly

(47:22):
and build build the anticipationtention right, And and no other
manufacturer seems to be keeping up. I mean they're they're close,
but they're not they're not trying. They're not in this
like back and forth war with Dodge. And I feel
like dodges in its own place right now, and I
feel like that's what's going on. So we got our
list out. I I did, however, neglect to get into

(47:42):
you know, the most expensive luxury cars, the sedans rather
the fastest sedans, you know, the fastest cars for the money,
that kind of thing. We'll get to that, I think, well,
we'll do it in another episode, if that's all right.
But I have I've I've truly enjoyed having you here
with me today and I've app and it's been a blast.
It's been fun, it really has. And I'm so happy

(48:03):
that you've been able to sit on this one because
I don't know how you feel about the sidekick thing.
So there, you know, there's some great sidekicks out, dude.
Oh yeah, Like I look at myself as maybe like
a Garth Algar type or like a fam wise camge
what about Jesse Pinkman, But he didn't you didn't say
bitch every other word. But but no, Honestly, like some

(48:25):
of the sidekicks, I think, um and I don't mean
to like downplay your role here by saying your sidekick.
And I'm just so happy to be able to have
you behind the mic with me for once. It's it's
been a lot of fun and all right. So if
you want to contact us on on social media, there's
a couple of different ways to do that, and we
are on Facebook and on Instagram where we are the
fast Track Shuttle, and if you want to go to Twitter,
we are the fast Track Pod. And of course we

(48:48):
have a website. It's a brand new website actually where
we are the fast Track Show dot com and you
can check out all of our previous shows there and
it's only going to grow from this point for we
we're gonna have some more shows to add to that
every single week. And if you like what you hear,
you can leave a review on Apple Podcasts or even
on the I Heart Radio Apple or wherever you look
in your podcasts and definitely, you know, tell your friends,

(49:10):
do you want to say that you know, you like
what you heard on the Fast Track show and you
want to you want to check it out or you know,
maybe listen to it at the shop or you know whatever,
just out loud, you know where other people can be
exposed to it and and get um, you know, some
valuable information, I hope, and again we just we appreciate
it and thank you for listening. The fast Track is

(49:31):
a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.