Great Sleeper Cars
 

Any stock low performance car can, to one degree or another, be made into a "sleeper." Then there are the obvious great sleeper cars in more or less stock form. I think the Turbo Buick is pretty damn hard to beat in this category. There are the less obvious, but truly great sleeper cars in stock form. For my dollar, the Dodge Omni GLH really can't be beat. That car is straight up weird. Then there's the unexpected.

I'd have to say a C3 Corvette can make for a mighty fine sleeper. Why? In stock form (most) C3s suffered through a terrible performance era. A V6 Accord will spank on a late 70s C3. Yet C3s look the sports car part, with a heavy dose of American swagger. It never ceases to amaze how many people want a peace of little old me. . . :D

My CTS-V is kind of a sleeper. Who would think a 4 door sedan could blow past a vett?

Even though it's large, I'd say a modern Taurus SHO. It looks like any other Taurus really, but with mild mods can run mid 12's.

The new SHO are crazy fast.

I agree on the V. Another sleeper is the 1996 Mitsubishi Galant VR4. Allwheel drive twin turbo V6 with 276hp and 271tq. It ad almost as much hp as the Camaro Z28 and Mustang Cobra.

Ben, I have the same issue with the Cobra. Stock it was only 240hp and people always try to race me. Actually, my wife gets challenged more than me. My favorite was when a couple of guys in a Galardo thought they were the shit. I was sitting at a stop light when they made a right hand turn onto the street I was on and jump on it. The road we were going up was three lanes wide. We both ended up stopped at the next signal with them first and me in the same lane right behind them. They were throwing revs and trying to act cool. As soon as the light turned green they jumped on it again. I passed them in third gear and the look on their faces was priceless.

Another fun one was when I picked my sister-in-law and her friend up from school one day. It just happened to be a Monday after I had gone to the races and I still had my M/T ETs on the Cobra. We were stopped at a signal when one of the other kids from the school pulled up next to us in a WRX STI. He looked over at us and threw a rev. I looked over at her friend and asked if he wanted to eat a WRX and he said hell ya! So I watch the light and brought the rpms up to 4000. As soon as the light changed I dropped the clutch and we were gone. I pulled him by about 2 car lengths before we even finshed getting through the intersection.

I think you can throw the Ecoboost Flex in there too. A crossover hauling ass, really? Should be interesting to see these things with some bolt-ons.

I have a sleeper.

In the 60's and early 70's the sleepers were some like this---

70 340 Duster/twister
70 Buick GTS 455
68 Dodge Dart GT
66 Nova with the L79 327
66-67 Olds 442 with W30 package



They were not known to be fast at the time of induction.:jester:

The list of PIGS that should of been fast is ever longer.:rolleyes:

I think I've told this story before. But when I was about 10 my mom had a 51 Willys Overland that just happened to have a Corvette 327 in it. The transmission was pretty dodgy, but one day at an intersection, when no doubt my brother and me were driving her to point of mental instability, a couple kids in a VW started snickering and revving their engine. My mom just looked ahead and stood, I mean stood, on the gas pedal, and for once, everything worked flawlessly. That damn thing shot away from the intersection like a bomb went off behind it. Don't really remember what the guys in the VW did, I think they just turned the other way. :judge:

Turbo Buick may have been a sleeper in the 80s, but now it's more sought after than Vettes from the same era. So no, it's not a sleeper.

My favorite sleeper would be a hopped up SRT4 with an SXT body on it. I've also seen an 80s POS primered Nova with the same motor basically that I have. He would have to take the cake actually.