It's Monday, so why not start off properly with a drag race between some quick and lightweight sports cars? In this video, 888MF (Mark) brings out his very own Alfa Romeo 4C to an open airstrip to see how it'll stack up in a contest of speed. To challenge the 4C, the all-new BMW M2 Competition joins the battle. It may be a bit more expensive than the 4C, but acceleration stats are quite comparable at around four seconds to 60 mph (96 km/h). Just to make things a bit more interesting, a third challenger was invited to join the race – a Lotus Exige 350 Sport (which wasn't sold in the States).
Before the three-way drag race begins, two base-model M2s appear to go up against the new Competition model. The blue M2 being equipped with the six-speed manual gearbox and the black one having the seven-speed dual-clutch transmission. In the first race, the M2 with the manual gets the best start right out of the gate, but the Competition immediately gains ground and leaves the other two all the way to the finish line. With a quick driver swap, the second race begins with Becky (queenb) in the manual M2 messing up the launch at the start. As expected, the M2 Competition takes the win without breaking a sweat, followed by the DCT-equipped Bimmer taking second place.
For the main event, Mark lines up his 4C against the M2 Competition and the Exige 350 Sport. With all three cars having similar acceleration, it's tough to guess who takes the win. In the first race, the Alfa gets a blistering start and just keeps pulling away to the finish line. The Lotus gets a great start, but starts to lose ground midway through the race. Even though the M2 Competition has the most horsepower at 405 ponies (302 kW) , it's still not enough to beat the others.
The final drag race between the three difference cars really shows the importance of power-to-weight-ratio. Even though the Alfa 4C has the least power of the lot only making 237 horsepower, its greatest advantage is its 2,465-pound (1,118 kg) curb weight. It's a bit lighter than the Exige and a whole lot lighter than the M2 Competition. The 4C is down two cylinders, but it doesn't take a whole lot of power to get it up to speed and the race definitely made that clear. A second run was conducted to make sure the first run wasn't a fluke and the same exact result happened. Light cars make for fast cars.
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