My wife had one of those – a convertible. A 3.1L V6 is an awful lot of power to have in a relatively light car, and there was no end of joy in stepping on the gas pedal.
I’ve never asked her how fast she ever got it going. I don’t think I ever took it over 90MPH, personally.
My last two cars have been overpowered by your criterion, but barely.
'96 Caprice, same LT1 engine as the police package that year.
260 HP, 330 FT/LB/Torque, a little over 16 LB/HP, 7.8 seconds to 60, 15.9 second quarter, 134 MPH calculated top end.
'02 Sable, 24V Duratec engine
200 HP, 200 FT/LB/Torque,17.5 LB/HP, 8.0 seconds to 60, 16.2 second quarter, 139 MPH calculated top end.
The Caprice was only BARELY faster on paper than the Sable, but the low-end torque really made it feel fast… I felt like the Sable was way too slow until I sat down and ran it in the simulator… it actually beat the Caprice when I ran it on my simulated LeMans track, and my limited experience with driving to emergency rooms via the Interstate has made me believe the Sable can actually get me [my wife] there quicker.
I’ve decided that going forward, I’ll base “fast enough” decisions on a car’s LB/HP horsepower at 2000 RPM, not on any of the advertised numbers.
I take my car to 3000 RPM or above less than once a week, so the top end really doesn’t matter, and in traffic it’s the bottom end that counts.
I’m going to say that most Americans who drive a vehicle that isn’t a minivan, SUV, pickup or compact have a 50/50 chance of driving an overpowered car. It’s a FUN time to be driving in America, except for gas prices.
Necros,
Never driven a car that does a 12.9 second quarter, so you got me beat there.
1976 Dodge Charger with a 400cc, 4 barrel engine.
I could barely make it from one gas station to the next, but boy, did that baby have some giddyup!
Never. I needed all 227 horses in my WRX, and if takes longer than 5 seconds to hit 60mph from a stop than you are wasting valuable time.
My car is constantly overpowered. It’s overpowered by every other vehicle on the road. 
Nice! I had a 1969 Riviera back in the day. Never had the nerve to go that fast, but it sure did leave a trail of burnt rubber if you wanted it to.
Now, my sister had a 1971 Ford Torino Super Cobra Jet with the shaker hood scoop in the picture. While I was learning to drive in a beat to crap Chevette, she needed to go on an errand, so she let me drive her there in her car as practice. One entirely accidental burnout later, I understood what “overpowered” meant.
Joy indeed. 
That was a good little car. I actually have no idea how fast I was really going that day, seeing as how the speedometer only showed the numbers up to 100, and then just past that was a pin that prevented the needle from going any further around, which I did, indeed, have the needle up against.
I’m not really a “fall in love with a car” kinda guy, but I did love my 330Ci. It handled wonderfully, and it was certainly fast.
After going from it to a Subaru Impreza :eek: I moved up to the 3.0 Outback sedan. It’s also pretty sexy (and fast).
I drove my brother’s Porsche 924 a couple of times. Only car I’ve ever been in that regularly buried me in the seat.
Your standards are not that tough. I had a '77 Camaro that exceeded your listed numbers with only a 305 Engine. I had it from '86 to '90 and I did not consider it an overpowered car. I ran it up to 140 mph once against a friend with a 289 '67 Mustang. I drove my Camaro across country 3 times. I loved that car. I did 100 mph across New Mexico. Fun stuff. It is good to be young and stupid.
It handled like a dream and had a California Transmission which apparently meant, I cruised at 70-75 mph.
I knew a guy with a suped up Hemi Cuda. That was a mean screaming overpowered machine.
Jim
Well let’s see.
My first car was a 1968 Plymouth Fury I ex LA County sheriff’s car. 383 CI, 3.9 rear end gears. Never came across any car that beat it up to 95 mph, only did about 120 WOT due to the gears.
Several Volvo that have had some serious (but sleeper) speed. Olaf the lazy my '94 850 I hit the road speed limiter at 152 MPH when going out to Phoenix. (My wife’s comment: don’t you think you are going a little fast?)
Or the 850 T5-R that I preped for racing and we were clocked on radar at 162 acros the finish line. The following year we had a car that could due a little more (maybe 168-170) but we lost oil pressure and got a DNF. 
This car could break the front tires loose at 70 mph in 5th gear just by hitting the gas hard. 
Most recently both an S60R and a V70R. both had 300 HP, AWD, 6 speed manual, computerized traction control, computerized stability control. The wagon in particular is a very fast way to go get groceries. I have embarssed several BMW owners. They don’t like getting passed in a corner by a station wagon. Particulary when they seem to think they are going real fast.
This is my current ride. Which looks like this if it rains. Not fast due to all the extra weight, but they can have this car back when they pry it out of my cold dead hands.
When I was 17 I bought a 1971 Chevy Chevelle SS454 that was so fast it was scary. I sold it after I grew weary of buying new rear tires.
My neighbor has a beautiful '95 Ford Ranger with a Mustang 5.0 HO V8 engine. The engine has been blueprinted and modified with a hi-lift cam, forged steel crankshaft, racing con-rods and pistons, ported and polished heads, Mallory ignition, headers and Flowmaster exhaust, and a “chipped” ECM.
I don’t know how fast it will go, the speedo isn’t connected, but it gets scary squirrely long before it runs out of power. If you cruise along at 30-35 mph and floor it, it will spin the rear wheels as long as you hold the pedal down. :eek:
I’ve got a 4-door version of a 1968 Olds Delta 88 with a 4bbl 455cid engine. It was rated at 350 bhp when new, so I would guess around 250bhp when I had it on the road. Plenty of power, but man it drinks gas. I’ve been fixing it up in hopes of getting it back on the road, and had the gas line (and return) hooked up to a 2 litre pop bottle filled with gas. You know you’re in trouble when mileage is measured in litres per minute…while idling.
My first car was a 1977 Chevy Monza with a V8 305. It wasn’t a power machine, but it wasn’t embarassing either…well, until the frame broke under the weight of the engine.
My brother has let me drive his new BMW M5 a couple of times and that thing is a trill ride of a sedan! At 510bhp, it needs the computer controlled systems to stop the tires from spinning. It has F1 style paddles to shift gears, but I used the automatic transmission since it peeled through the first 3 gears so fast. The active seat side bolsters are a treat when you careen around a corner at 80mph. He took it to a race track to try it out and managed to get up to 220kph on the straightaway.
BTW, I’m going home tonight in my minivan…I miss those rides. But I’m miles ahead of the 1971 Plymouth Cricket, 1980 Datsun 210 and 1985 Honda Accord.
I got my 1993 Toyota Corolla up to about 105 once on my way to Riverside about three years ago. It started shimmying at that point, so I backed off. However, it can handle extended periods of 90mph driving (I, er, have a long driveway).
Of cars I’ve personally owned, the most overpowered was probably my first: the ‘brown submarine’, a '65 Buick Wildcat four-door with a V8 rated at 325 HP. The thing was too old, and the balding snow tires it wore too dodgy, for me to ever consider really opening it up, though.
Runner-up would have been a mint-condition '68 Lincoln Continental that I had a few years later. I know it had a 460 cid engine in it, but I never bothered to check the horsepower rating, and it had a huge amount of weight to pull around. I only had it a couple of months before some drunken yahoo managed to total it in a hit-and-run, so again never quite got a chance to air it out.
Fastest cars cars I’ve ever driven were my late uncle’s '72 Mustang Mach 1 with a 429, and a BMW 645ci briefly owned by a friend. Only in the Mustang did I exceed 100 MPH.
The car I routinely drove the fastest of all these, however, was in fact nowhere near as powerful as the others. It was my beloved '81 Audi 4000 5+5 (US version of the 80, with a five-cylinder in-line engine). It was only rated at about 100HP, but it was a relatively light car with superb handling. I once traversed the completely empty and straight road road leading to the DOT test facility outside Pueblo, CO at 100+ (the speedo stopped there), another time got ticketed for going 95 on a two-lane in western Kansas (after travelling for about an hour at that clip), and routinely paced trucks at 80+ on Interstate 80 in Wyoming. Lord, I loved that car.
Yes.
A 1969 Ford Torino with a 428 Cobra Jet engine.
Lesser, but with a lot greater percentage of weight on the front, meaning harder to control, a 1967 Mustang 390 GT.
In the “Have you ever driven” category, I did once have the pleasure of putting a 1965 Cobra thru its paces. (didn’t own it, just drove it.)
Oh, yeah. Almost forgot this one. Strictly a racing drag car. 1962 Nova with a 427 engine, high-ram twin 4 bbls. Doesn’t really meet your OP, since it wasn’t a street car. You’d find it hilarious how I came to be the driver in that one.
We current have a Saab 92-X Aero (Subaru WRX rebadged). 227 HP. And we use every bit of it, (-:
I used to have a 1967 Camaro that had a 327 small block V8 pulled from a 365 HP Corvette. The engine was then bored out, the compression was raised to 11.5:1, the heads were ported and polished, all the rotating parts were dynamically balanced, and it was fitted with water injection to prevent detonation. Easily 425 HP. Now THAT was too much power, because the car it went into originally had a 6-cylinder engine in it. WIthin a few months I had blown the transmission, the rear end gears, and ruined the rear suspension. So it got all upgraded parts to handle the power, and then it was a lightning fast car. Not only could it smoke the tires in all gears, I couldn’t STOP it from chirping the tires on shifts, because it had a hard shift kit in it (automatic). Chirping the tires shifting from second to third beside a police car was always a laff riot.
My HS car was a 1971 Monte Carlo with something like a 350+ cu V8. That car would leave rubber and press you back in your seat.
I have difficulty tolerating anything less than a V6.
I just checked the Parker.co.uk guide for my wee Honda and it manages more than I thought, 88bhp. But I’m guessing that wear and tear has brought that down a bit. In a few years, I fully intend to have an Accord or Integra with a nice VTEC engine up front 
