It should come as no surprise to any enthusiast that we are living the golden age of horsepower. Chrysler has just announced the 2015 Hellcat Challenger that makes an astonishing 707 net horsepower, and you can buy a ZL1 Camaro with 580 horsepower that now almost seems tame compared to Chrysler’s shot across the bow.

Not too long ago, a 400 horsepower Small Block Chevy built on a reasonable budget warranted a cover blurb on a national magazine. I wrote my share of those stories. But today, there better be a comma in the power number as in “2,000 HP from a Junkyard Refugee!” Clearly, the horsepower escalation game has jumped an entire generation here somehow.

It used to be that a typical car guy with a low 12-second street car was content in the knowledge that he owned the road against anything that came off the production line. But clearly that’s no longer true. Both the Hellcat and the ZL1 Camaro can run deeply into the 11s. And with sticky tires, the Hellcat should even run low 11s!

This new horsepower escalation signals that backyard modified cars are going to need to be a bit more sophisticated both in terms of drivetrain and suspension. Sure, you can bolt on nitrous or a supercharger to a 6.2L LS engine and stuff it into a ’69 Camaro and have fun. But it’s going to take talent to plant 700 horsepower to the ground and make it stick. And if that happens, this will quickly point out the weak link in the driveline. Can the transmission handle that power? Can the rear suspension apply that power in a reasonable fashion?

I have a friend who is an engineer for General Motors. In a recent discussion, he said something very important. He works on electronic control systems, and he pointed out that the power the new car companies are cranking out is carefully managed with very sophisticated algorithm-based electronics. It’s likely that these current control systems are far more sophisticated than what NASA used to get us to the moon back over 40 years ago. Add production-based launch control systems and all of a sudden it promises to be tough to match the performance of a modern day production car like the Hellcat or the ZL1.

The performance industry is capable of delivering astonishing horsepower to anyone willing to write the check. Magazines are running stories on 2,000 horsepower engines, but nobody is talking about how to manage all that power. In my limited experience driving high horsepower cars, massive power just makes it that much easier to massively screw up.

I think that the company or companies that lock in on a sophisticated yet manageable control mechanism that can harness all that power while also managing the entire vehicle might have the next big industry-wide game changer. Perhaps it will be along the lines of a sophisticated electronic system that will employ multiple sensors for input that can be used to help the car put down the power.

Yes, we’re talking about traction control – but in a good way that keeps an average driver from destroying his car because he didn’t know what to do when the tires turned into smoke machines. A tunable electronic system could help him stay out of trouble. In the meantime, big power numbers will just mean it’s easier to spin the tires. Maybe instead of fighting tire spin, owning a tire company is the real solution! яндекс