Up to now I have been going on and on about some of the cars, their breed and the technology that caught my eye. I would go on and on about what the car can do, what it cant do, what it would be better off doing and you know blah blah blah blah blah blah. Now… Change of Pace..
Heres what I have in mind….. :)
This time im going to go short and sweet. Short being the article and sweet being the the subject of the article…. My choice for this would be something which has come to become a fundamental factor when it comes to the motoring world. The Power to Weight Ratio
Okkk… now what exactly is this power to weight ratio… The best place to begin to explain this would be to start off by explaining what power really is. Power in simple terms is the … erm… well… the power output of the engine. Its usually measured in horse powers, which basically equates the power of the engine to the mode of transportation at the time when the petrol engine was first invented, The Horse and cart.
So 1 Horse Power = 1 horse n cart
2 Horsepower = 2 horse n cart
Modern cars have horsepower ranges goin from 40 to well over 1000 horse powers and all produced from a petrol engine.
So where did it all start??
In Germany 1885.
The Benz Tricycle
The first ever petrol engine was put on the Benz Tricycle by inventor Karl Benz can be considered as the first motor car. It just consisted of a 3 wheeled bike like structure with a petrol engine stuffed into the back. It was first driven over a long distance by his wife when she went off with her daughter without telling Karl to see relatives who lived 2 towns away.
Yeah Yeah the first person to properly drive the first car was female...Thankfully its not a well known fact…or we’ll never hear the end of it. Specifications
Engine: 1 cylinder, 1.0 litre, 1 horse power.
Top Speed: 8mph (12 kmph)
So over the years engines got bigger and bigger due to one reason. The bigger the engine the greater the power. It works like this
High Capacity cylinder = more fuel air mixture can be input = larger explosion = MORE POWER
This moved onto the launch of the first purpose built race cars. The engines kept bigger and bigger until they reached their most massive…………… until………….. they came up what is considered to be the god of race cars.
The Napier Railton. 
Built in 1933 for land speed record breaking drive John Cobb’s the Napier Railton was powered by an airplane engine. There were 2 reasons for the use of the aero plane engines. One was that many of the car companies at the time were forced to build airplane engines to power the World War 1 air craft’s. So the left over’s after the war came in handy for Cobb’s. Obviously the byproduct of an engine made to do dogfights in mid air was well, sheer amounts of power that the enginecould generate. It was TERRIFIC for any race car driver. Engine: Napier Lion, W12, 23 Litre, over 500 hp
Top Speed: 168 mph (270kmph)
However soon after the race car associations somehow put together rules banning the use of aircraft engines in cars. Race car builders were made to focus on building lighter smaller engine cars with more power. Also due to the sheer number of casualties regulations forced race car builders to build cars which are more capable of taking corners and handling rather than just sheer brutal speed.
And here was one of the turning points away from power. 
A way to increase your overall performance and stability was to reduce the weight. Even though the engine power was kept constant, the reducing of the weight meant that better performance and handling capabilities were available to the drivers. Many modern cars of the days, best example McLaren MP4-12C, SSC Aero are built with the whole weight reduction point in mind. I mean these cars were pretty much OBSESSED with weight reduction. The McLaren MP4-12C charred off kilos every where it possible could. The SSC Aero on the other hand removed comforts like the air conditioning and even the radio to boost performance. 
Another reason for the power measurement to go out of hand was because as speed increase power tends to turn into a more exponential figure You see as cars go faster and faster the more obstacles it meets to its motion such as drag force etc. So say I take the example of the Bugatti Veyron. All it needs to achieve 140 kmph is only about 270 horse powers but to reach its top speed of 400 kmph . It needs 1000 horse powers. So in essence to travel from 240 to 400 kmph which is an extra 160 kmph the Bugatti needs 730 horse powers. :O. I mean compare the figures. You’ll see for yourself just how much more power it needs to go fast. So that really puts the power measurement out of line.
So as you can see from what I explained above power really cannot be the measurement that can be used when measuring the actual capabilities of the car. Hence began the use of the Power to Weight ratio
The power to weight ratio uses the units of HorsePowers/Kg. So it basically looks at how much of horse power is produced for every tonne in a car.
Now this number can be really used to identify what a vehicle is capable of……..
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