Miata vs Lamborghini: This Drag Race Is Way Closer Than You Think
A contest between a 1,001-hp Lamborghini and a 181-hp Miata can be made fair.
I had an interesting realization during Motor1's inaugural Cool Car Cup test—you can floor the throttle in a Lamborghini Revuelto without waking up its monster V-12. The Revuelto is a hybrid, with a motor for each front wheel, and another motor attached to the transmission. In its Città (city) mode, you get about 185 horsepower.
We just happened to have a similarly powerful car on hand—the Mazda MX-5 Miata, with 181 hp from its 2.0-liter four-cylinder. An interesting matchup started to form in my mind, so, we used the front straight of Streets of Willow to see which is quicker—a Miata, or a Revuelto in electric mode.
While the Lamborghini's electric motors can deploy all their torque instantaneously, and there's no shifting to interrupt the flow of power, the Miata takes it in this particular contest. They might have similar horsepower, but this Miata RF weighs around 2,450 pounds; the Lamborghini weighs somewhere in the region of 4,000 pounds.
In a roll race from 20 mph, the Lamborghini got closer, but the Miata still pulled ahead. We also tried it out with the Lamborghini in Corsa mode, unleashing its full 1,001 hp, and I probably don't need to tell you how that went.
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