I don't know. Are small engines an excuse to slag off a car you don't like for other reasons?
It usually is the reason, or part of it. Take the Chevrolet Cruze. With a normal-sized engine, it'd just be a doofy-looking, overweight, but otherwise completely unremarkable economy car, that for me would settle into the middle of Uncool somewhere. But with the 1.4 turbo, it approaches "certian TV show mods probably won't let me mention" levels of uncool, even if it is faster than its predecessor of 20 years ago - a overly-posh, sissy car built for people who'd rather not drive if they can help it.
For the record, I've not once personally mentioned HP/L in a cool wall thread. Because, like small engines and several other things, it's pretty much irrelevant to a car's coolness. But it's probably worth protecting the panes in that glass house of yours before you start slinging stones around.
A big engine can enhance a car's coolness. Specific output really doesn't, because it's about as nerdy as you can get without getting into engineer-speak so technical even some car people probably don't know what it means. It's not like someone's going to see me driving around in my Sunbird and think, "that car only has 45.2 HP/L when a Honda Civic of the same vintage could have 83.3, so therefore I hate that car and I hate the guy driving it." Those who know something will see the "3.1 V6" fender badges and think "hmmm, that has more torque than most economy cars". Those that don't just see a car.
And that's also why the people who would say that Honda is cooler frankly don't know what cool means. "Hey dude, I got VTEC. My car is better because it's like all technically advanced and stuff while yours is from the stone age, so I have lots of horsepower per liter." Whoopty do, you still have no liters to back it up, so you're still slow.
To me, higher HP/L just means a car is higher strung (or, if not that, more complicated and difficult to work on) and closer to the limits of its potential (which means less room for improvement via modification).
Same here, I don't think I've ever voted on the basis of HP/L and it really isn't all that important.
Having a high HP/L is something that can make me like a car, I find the engineering that goes into the small engines these days to be fascinating, especially when you look at things like the Matrix XRS that did it 12 years ago, and it's amazing to me that we can get ~200 hp and 200+ lb ft out of 1.6L engines regularly.
To some degree, yes, but it doesn't make a car any cooler. An increase in specific output usually means a smaller engine, not a more powerful one. Think of it this way: if the V6-190 was still in use in the aforementioned Cruze, using the same technology and thus having the same specific output, it would have ~306 horsepower and could give the STi and Evo a run for their money. But they don't do that. Instead they use an engine less than half the size with vaguely the same output. Necessary? Yes, I suppose so, most people would probably rather have 40 MPG from a sissy engine than 25-30 MPG with much better performance from a real engine, and the government has decided the few people who'd rather have MPH than MPG can't have what they want. But is it cool? Absolutely not!
Perhaps I've made some posts taking the piss out of the massive V8's putting out little power but I don't really mean it. No matter what kind of engines you prefer there is some humour in big V8's being less powerful than some I4's even if it doesn't really mean anything. It neatly fits existing Murica vs. Yurope stereotypes so it's kinda funny.
Not really. High specific output, reliabile, simple to work on, pick any two.
I dunno. My ideal daily driver would be a Fiesta ST or GTI. My dream classic car is a '67 Mercury Cougar. I want a CTS-V or a hopped up Volvo wagon some day. Clearly I'm a sissy who hates apple pie and red meat, because if you don't straw man people's arguments it gets really hard to hate people who like all the same things you do.
Why would you want a trailer queen? If you can afford a Cougar, why would you want to drive an ugly hatchback instead?
I think this is hugely overplayed by yourself and a select few other members here.
I can't speak for everyone, but a great number of the UK GTP members I've met like large-engined vehicles as much as they do smaller ones. It's harder to own one of course (some manage, against the odds), but that just makes them more appealing as a "forbidden fruit".
I suspect similar is the case across other European members. Perhaps a vocal minority make it seem like that isn't the case, but ultimately that has even less outcome on the cool wall, except for members who can't separate cars they like from those they think are cool.
On the cool wall I've voted several cars with large engines (several American ones included) both cool and uncool. And I've voted several smaller cars (or cars with smaller engines) both cool and uncool too. Engine size does not, and should not have a bearing on how cool a car is.
Engine size certainly is a part of coolness. It's not really a direct correlation - it's more of there being a point where an engine is too small and is thereby uncool. IMO, 120 ci is the bare minimum for a car to be cool, and most compact cars that are still above that level come close enough to it that a compact with a V6, no matter how horrible a V6, is cooler.
I any case, I have seen HP/L used as a rationale for hating a car. Yes, as a matter of fact I am still miffed about the bum rap my car got.
Based on these posts, I'd almost guess that when people called my car uncool by reason of insufficient specific output, they really meant "it's not posh enough and White & Nerdy owns one".
