There are all kinds of ways to go really ridiculously fast in the modern era of speed chasing, but the down-home hillbilly in me has always been more interested in how fast you can go for as little cash outlay as possible. Sure, any asshole with a big sack of cash can drop four milly on a Koenigsegg Jesko Absolut to allegedly crack the 300 mile per hour barrier, but what about more accessible speed? Given a closed course and a few bucks, how fast do you think you could go, and what would you use?
Let’s get a few things out of the way first to narrow down our theories. I’m not going to define “fast” or “cheap” for this exercise, because you’re smart people and you know what those words mean, right? You can go to any Chevrolet dealer in the country and order up a base model Corvette for $68,300, head to the track and rip a 194 mile per hour run. If you have an M endorsement and $59,100 you can order a track-only H2R from Kawasaki and crack 220! So that’s the upper limit of our cheap speed experiment, I think. Can you exceed those speeds for less money? Absolutely!
Take, for example, this old S197 Mustang GT500. Right before ’Ol Shel’ kicked the bucket he wanted a car with his name on it to go 200 miles per hour from the factory. This was an ill-handling shitbucket, but it’s got a supercharged 5.4-liter V8 under the hood making 540 horsepower and a good old-fashioned Tremec six-speed you-shift-it-yourself pushing power to the rear wheels. This was the epitome of American Muscle. This example has a few modifications, including a stepped down supercharger pulley for a claimed 650 horses to go even faster. Is there anything cheaper than a $39,000 Mustang that can crack the 200 mile per hour barrier?
Well, you could go the Euro route and rip up to 203 miles per hour in a V10-powered BMW M5 sedan from 2010. These Bangle-era BMWs were about as whole-hog as you could get, with 507 horses from a 5-liter ten-cylinder monster. Hell, you could bring three adult friends along for your 200-mile-per-hour jaunt. Get this one right now for just $22,500.
Personally, I think the answer has to be something on two wheels. It takes significantly more bravery (or stupidity) to “do the double-ton” on a motorcycle than it does in a car, that’s for certain, but with a lot less frontal area it also takes a lot less power. While the Suzuki Hayabusa never officially cracked the 200 mile per hour barrier from the factory and was given a 186 mph limiter in 2000. A stock 2005 model would have made around 163 horsepower, but this example on eBay has an aftermarket turbocharger kit and an extended swingarm for launch stability. I would wager that it can easily exceed the 200 mile per hour barrier with a few tweaks, and with a Buy It Now price of just $5,000 it might be the cheapest fast you can buy today.
What do you think? Can you find a cheaper fast than this cheap fast? Sound off in the comments below with your ideas.
