There is an excellent thread
here on understanding Torque and BHP. (Mods you may merge this with the old thread if it fits).
I am trying to understand how numbers on paper translate to real life. (of course, there is the weight of the vehicle, gears and its handling dynamics etc).
For example, I recently test drove the Jeep Grand Cherokee in India. It has a 2 litre turbo charged petrol engine producing (as per Jeep India website) 268 BHP at 5200RPM and 400NM of torque at 3000 RPM.
The drive itself felt spirited and zippy on a level road for a 2097 kilo car (I was surprised). How will it work on an uphill road with 5 adults in the car, their luggage and AC running? Will it be (almost as) effortless as compared to a Ford Endeavour 3.2 Titanium with 200BHP and 470NM and 2400KG?
I drove the Jeep Meridian 2 litre diesel immediately after that, and the drive felt sluggish and full of effort as compared to the Grand Cherokee, I felt I had to press the engine harder to move zippier and it was probably noisier as well; (this could be a function of sound insulation).
Although most cars get the job done (I have seen Altos scurrying along in Kaza, fully loaded and all), for hard core driving enthusiasts, we look for driving pleasure. We look for the feeling of a surge of power. We want to be able to drive effortlessly up winding ghats, fully loaded with ACs on in full blast, and to have enough reserve power to quickly overtake slow moving trucks (safety and lanes permitting) in short quick bursts of speed and power.
How much of the zipper feeling is also a result of the tuning of the engine (+gear etc combo) to produce more power/torque vs tuned for mileage in a price sensitive segment?
Grand Cherokee dashboard was suggesting around 5-6kmpl and Meridian would be much higher of course).
