Proposal for old car reviews: CAU

"Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To" (murdersofa) 06/20/2016 at 23:39 • Filed to: None

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CAU stands for “Corvette Acceleration Units”, a method of comparing the relative acceleration prowess of a car against a contemporary Corvette. I use the ‘Vette as a standard because of its long-running history, the way its performance scales with technology, and that the ‘Vette has always been considered, at the very least, a quick car. The ‘vette used will always be manual, and always the base model as trim levels and their respective power increases vary wildly by generation and even years within the generation.

Here’s an example: The NA and ND Mazda MX-5.

1990 Miata: 8.9 second 0-60 (as measured by MotorTrend)

1990 Corvette: 6.0 second 0-60

1990 Miata CAU is therefore 6.0/8.9 or 0.674 CAU using the Corvette as the numerator so that larger result = faster relative car to the vette.

2016 Miata: 5.8 second 0-60 (as measured by Car and Driver)

2016 Corvette: 3.9 second 0-60 (as measured by Car and Driver)

2016 Miata CAU is therefore 3.9/5.8 or 0.672 CAU

This is actually quite interesting, as it shows that both the Mazda Miata and the Chevrolet Corvette have scaled their acceleration capabilities very evenly compared to each other, even though the current-generation Miata sprints to 60 quicker than the 1990 Corvette did.

All 0-60 times from !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

Please leave feedback on this method of scoring along with possible improvements.

CB > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 06/20/2016 at 23:41

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It’s stupid and unnecessarily complicated.

Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To > CB 06/20/2016 at 23:45

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thx. But it does put into perspective how “quick” a car is relative to contemporary public perception, which when you’re reviewing an old shitbox could be a useful metric. I guess.

pImpOfThePerverse > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 06/20/2016 at 23:48

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Endorse

Flavien Vidal > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 06/20/2016 at 23:48

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0 to 60 is not really idea as far as times are concerned... According to them, my old ‘95 corvette is supposed to do the quarter mile in 14s, but my best with it was 13.44s at 104mph, the 1/8 of a mile was done in 8.699s. As for the 0 to 60 times, I did it in 5.2s.

Keep in mind that it had a 260.000km (well maintained) engine also...

So I highly doubt their 0 to 60 are in anyway precise and stand for something...

FTTOHG Has Moved to https://opposite-lock.com > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 06/20/2016 at 23:54

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I actually love this. But also baseball is my favorite sport and I pay attention to stats like WAR and OPS so maybe I’m not the best to listen to.

Speaking of WAR, this accomplishes something similar. Perhaps instead of CAU it could be AAV - acceleration above average where the average is some set fleet of cars each model year - like say the average acceleration of the top-5 selling midsize sedan drivetrains or something like that. Obviously we don’t have enough data for it to me all cars sold and I don’t think that makes sense anyway. But maybe comparing to the Camcordibu of the era would work. That way a corvette is also going to be >1 so it seems quick.

We could take this a step further by factoring in list prices vs. average selling price for that model year to assign a sort of WAR for cars with high AAV at low cost. But now I’m thinking wayyyyy to much about this and should go to bed.

Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 06/20/2016 at 23:54

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It for sure isn't the worst method of benchmarking acceleration.

smobgirl > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 06/21/2016 at 00:13

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I like the idea of this. For some reason my brain feels like it would be more content if the fractions were reversed - we were dividing by Corvettes, since that is the common factor of comparison. Unfortunately I’m not able to articulate it better than that and it’s been a long time since I took a math class.

Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies > Flavien Vidal 06/21/2016 at 06:55

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How old were the tires? Those have came a long way, and help with acceleration.

Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To > smobgirl 06/21/2016 at 06:55

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I did that at first but then you end up with numbers like “1.876" and “1.765" where smaller is better, which seems less logical.

Flavien Vidal > Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies 06/21/2016 at 07:20

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They were quite shitty actually... Goodyear Eagle F1 Supercar... Really crappy when compared to proper Pirelli P Zero and similar tires... I don’t remember how old they were though, but not new for sure. The old guy I bought the car from had these tires on and was driving it 2000km per year lol

SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 06/21/2016 at 08:16

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OMG, the Mirage is in two digits! 11.7 seconds with CVT, so 1/3 of a CAU! I love it!

RT > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 06/21/2016 at 08:31

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CAU may not work in places where the Corvette isn’t sold or as famous.

But I love the idea, pretty neat benchmarking system.

CAUs would be quite messed up in the 70s though. xD

Dave the car guy , still here > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 06/21/2016 at 08:46

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So my 2008 A3 3.2 when stock would have a .689 CAU against a 2008 Vette using the stock model with the Car and Driver figures. With the mild mods on my car my CAU is .714. With my next planned change I should be about .769 CAUs. Interesting. Now we just need a column like the track time pillar on Top Gear.

Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To > Dave the car guy , still here 06/21/2016 at 09:15

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Maybe it would make more sense expressed as a percentage? “This car is x percent of a contemporary Corvette”

Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To > RT 06/21/2016 at 09:15

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But, like I said, corvettes scale with technology. The 80s was a bad time for ALL performance cars in America (you see the flaw in the system? XD) and the Corvette was not immune.

Your boy, BJR > CB 06/21/2016 at 09:39

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Lol why do you hate Jake so much tho?

Dave the car guy , still here > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 06/21/2016 at 10:14

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Actually I like the 3 place system , percentage would drop it to just two places. If you had two cars close in numbers but one consistently was a .719 and another was a .710 , if you used a percentage both would look like 71%. Its a little more accurate with the CAUs.

John Dyste > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 06/21/2016 at 11:12

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I would do the inverse. Car time over Corvette time. Then a 10 sec car with a 5 sec corvette would be a 2. Takes twice as long to acceleratE

CB > Your boy, BJR 06/21/2016 at 13:00

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Eh, I wouldn’t say I hate him. I mean, there are other Opponauts I dislike more. I just think that there’s nothing too much to be gained from this. I mean, it seems like an arbitrary distinction to pick the Corvette, right? Other posters suggesting fleet averages for the year make more sense to me.

RT > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 06/21/2016 at 19:40

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Corvettes scale with American technology, not the general mean.

Plenty of fast cars came out of Europe and Japan in the 70s and especially 80s. In America the story was different because they were recovering from strict regulations and fuel crisis.

So the Corvette is the benchmark for the American sports car, but only the American sports car, not the world average.