Not even on a practical aspect, a ‘speed’ aspect. Useful pub talk for Mitsubishi Space Star owners.
Even though it applies to more cars, the Mitsubishi Space Star proves that some people just want to get to work dry and don’t ask much more from a car. In any case, you shouldn’t expect the 71 hp 1.2 liter three-cylinder to be a killer. And yet there is a ‘speed test’ where the Mitsubishi Space Star is at the very top, even leaving Porsches and BMWs behind.
Research
This is thanks to a study by Car & Driver. The research tries to find out which cars are the most and least direct in terms of acceleration. Acceleration sounds pretty black and white. A Volkswagen Golf that takes nine seconds is slower than a Porsche that takes four seconds. But C&D has found a variable that is more relevant to the ‘real’ world. Acceleration figures have been measured with tools such as Launch Control, where the car finds the ideal speed range and even prepares the turbos. What C&D does is make the car sprint from 5 miles per hour (8 km/h) and then plank it. Then the car does not ‘understand’ that you are sprinting and the whole process, from spooling up the turbos to possibly responding to the automatic transmission, still has to begin. Why? Because it better simulates what you can expect in everyday traffic. Anyway, how much reaction time of the car does it cost?
Floppers
The worst cars in this study are cars whose 0-96 km/h sprint that the manufacturer says it achieves deviates the worst from the Car & Driver test. It is an American study, but with cars that we also know. For example, the Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT is in fifth place among the floppers, where the speed limit changes from 2.8 seconds to 4.5 seconds. The same deviation applies to the Ford Bronco, Range Rover Velar P250 and BMW M235i xDrive Gran Coupé. The worst deviation is as revealed in the title: the Porsche 718 Cayman T with manual gearbox, where the sprint is 4.4 seconds according to Porsche, but Car & Driver got it to 6.4 seconds, a difference of 2 seconds.
Turbo
As expected, the culprit in almost all of these cars is the turbo (or turbos). A turbo must be able to spool before it can provide the power boost. In a sprint you can actually only do this using launch control or when the car knows that you are going to give it a shot. But as mentioned, this research finds a way to surprise the engine with a sprint and then the turbos still have to do their work. However, a turbo engine does not automatically mean that a car scores poorly in this test. The top five most reactive turbocharged engines are the Hyundai Sonata, Mazda CX-90, Volkswagen Golf GTI, Subaru Legacy and Subaru Outback. All with a difference of 0.2 and 0.3 seconds compared to the factory specifications.
Best
The real winners, however, are the naturally breathing engines. Logical in itself, because you don’t actually get a more direct connection between accelerator pedal and engine. The Kia Telluride, Honda Pilot and Chevrolet Blazer, models with rather old engines, do not deviate even marginally from the factory specifications. And the Honda Odyssey and Mitsubishi Mirage (the model we call Space Star)? They are 0.1 seconds BELOW their factory specifications.
Conclusion
What have we learned? Actually nothing at all. It seems quite obvious to us that the factory specification (possibly with launch control) is not necessarily the position in which you leave every traffic light, so there is a deviation. We also don’t expect every drag racing event to be filled with Space Stars. Anyway, striking figures are striking figures and you now know more than you did before.
