A spec sheet is a row of numbers that assumes you already know what they measure. The thirteen answers below, and the index that gathers them, take the assumption away: what horsepower is a measurement of, why torque and power are two different questions about the same engine, what a turbocharger does that a bigger engine would have done instead, and which of the words used to sort cars into kinds have a definition behind them. Nothing on this stage sells anything, and you don't need to own a car to read it. Where a page states a figure or a definition, it links the source it came from.
The reading, in order
- Car questions, answered
- What is horsepower?
- What does BHP mean?
- What is torque in a car?
- Torque against horsepower
- What does 0-60 mph mean?
- What is engine displacement?
- How does a turbocharger work?
- What does naturally aspirated mean?
- What is a hot hatch?
- What is a supercar?
- What is a JDM car?
- What does GT mean on a car?
- How many are still on the road
When the words stop being the problem
Somewhere past here the question changes from what the numbers mean to which car you would actually want on a wall. That is the art, where twenty-eight paintings, a repaint of your own car and a straight print of your own photograph are the three ways out.
Written by Craig Fearn, Petrol & Ink. Last updated .