- Torque steer,
that car doesn't even drift.
Not even a real car.
Front wheel drive, some people just be hating on it.
Well guess what?
Front wheel drive cars can be really fast
and today we are gonna show you the top eight fastest
front wheel drive production cars ever.
We're gonna go by the gold standard of fast.
Official Nurburgring lap times.
The ultimate test of a cars abilities.
This is,
- [Narrator] D-List.
- [Announcer] Honda Type-R.
- Okay, let's just imagine for a second all right?
Let's do a little exercise, all right?
It's 2003, you just got a big old bonus,
you're like a stock market guy
or something and you got one of these bad boys,
you flew to England, picked it up at the factory,
took a ferry or something,
I don't know how but you're like I'm gonna drive it
on the ring and then all of a sudden you have to pull
to the side to let a Honda pass you and not just any Honda,
a Honda that's five years old at this point.
The Honda Integra Type-R has always been a race car made
to be used on the street.
I mean sure, it didn't have a big fancy number
on the side or a bunch of sponsored chips slapped all over
but what it did have was heart
and sometimes that's all that counts.
Ask me how I know,
my heart almost stopped working and I almost died.
This car has heart,
it also had a very affordable price point
for what it was when it came out.
That might be surprising
because completely stock low mileage Type-R's are going
for like $70,000 today but when they came out,
they were affordable,
especially considering how capable they were.
Feature.
Featuring the legendary B18C5 motor.
The Integra Type-R laid the ground work
for many of the cars that followed it and a lot
of the cars that are on this list.
Whilst others on this list might be faster,
more powerful, have better handling
and more sophisticated engineering,
none of them have the distinct honor
of being my number one pick in Need for Speed Underground.
And with a ring time of 8.43,
this hopped up little commuter car is faster
than an Aston Martin DB7.
- [Announcer] Renault Megane R26.R.
- If you're from America like where I am,
you might not know anything
about this funky little French car.
Ooh, that's funky little French car.
Basically, the Megane is Renault's sensible,
single family hatchback,
the Megane RS is a hotter hatchier version but the hottest,
most hatchy-est Megane of them all is the RS R26 period R.
At least in 2009 it was.
This petite French garcon
which roughly translates
into petite French boy sported an impressive run
around the Nurburgring clocking
in at just under eight minutes 17 seconds.
Now that's similar to a Porsche Cayman S
or a frigging Honda NSX,
both those cars are mid engine rear wheel drive,
AKA, supposedly the bestest handling setup.
So I guess you could say
that the Renault done pretty good
and it done pretty good with only 227 HRSPRS.
This of course was thanks in no small part
to the R26 period R's lightweight design.
How lightweight?
Well, you know how your car has things like a radio
or a back seat or an airbag for your passenger?
Well Renault said screw that, we want to go fast.
Get rid of all that stuff, we want to go fast.
(speaking in foreign language)
I have that tattooed on my arm,
(speaking in foreign language),
it means so far so good but who needs an airbag
when you aint got a passenger
because you have a nearly eight minute lap time
on the Nurburgring to keep you safe?
Renext please.
Big thanks to Off the Record
for sponsoring this weeks episode.
I just bought that car from the anime
and much like you guys,
my plan is to be out all this fourth
of July weekend ripping canyons and seeing what all 100
of these buff horses can do.
I'm worried about a lot of things
with this car and one if them is having too much fun
on the highest ticketed weekend of the year.
I don't want a bunch
of traffic tickets jacking my insurance rates up.
Well protect yourself against any traffic tickets
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They connect you with a local attorney
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They have a 97% success rate
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Support the companies that support Donut
so we can keep making all these videos for you guys,
we really like making them
and I hope you like watching them.
I'm sorry I shaved my beard, God!
- [Announcer] Seat Leon Cupra.
- Spanish car manufacturer, Seat,
okay I know it looks like seat but it's pronounced Seat.
This is a seat, this is a Seat, okay?
So Seat has been pumping out quality hatchbacks
from their Leon line for more
than a decade and the Leon Cupra just happened
to be the first hatchback
to dip below the eight minute mark,
edging out some legitimately legendary fast cars
like the Ruf Yellowbird,
now the Yellowbird was the fastest car
in the world for like seven years and
when I think of the Nurburgring,
I think of the Yellowbird so the fact
that this front wheel drive baby car is faster than
that car is very, very impressive.
We're only three cars
into this list and we're already faster than that car,
I don't wanna hear any more hate
for front wheel drive cars, they're cool.
I've owned almost exclusively front wheel drive cars.
A two liter, 276 HRSPRS engine
and a limited slip differential
helped the Cooper snatch that hard fought W.
That and having Touring Car driver, Jordi Gene?
Gene?
Jordi Gene is not my driver.
This car was also the fastest front wheel drive car
in the world at the time
with a top speed of 155 miles per hour.
I think it's safe to say
that this car had other manufacturers on the edge
of their Seats.
- [Announcer] Renault Megane RS 275 Trophy-R.
- Oh snap, our boys at Renault are back at it again.
In many ways the Trophy-R is sorta like Rocky II,
after being stripped of its title by Seat,
picks itself up off the mat,
wipes the blood from its mouth,
dusts the dirt off of its buff shoulders
and then beats up Carl Weathers
but instead of Carl Weathers it's Seat and instead
of blood from its mouth,
it's the grass form the Nurburgring,
there's a lot of grass there,
they call it the green hell for a reason.
Green hell is sick name.
The Trophy-R came back nearly 230 pounds lighter
with increased power courtesy
of a two liter turbo four cylinder
with 271 HRSPRS and like its older brother, the R26R,
it too forwent the crazy modern comforts
although this model did include passenger airbags
because if you're cutting weight you don't need
to put your friends in danger, you know what I mean?
It absolutely destroyed the Seat, posting a time of 7.54.4,
besting the Leon Cupra by a nice tighty,
exactly four seconds but the best and most hilarious part
about this car is the engine code.
F4RT, AKA (farting noises).
- [Announcer] Honda Civic Type R.
- If there were an award
for mixing affordability
with high performance then the Hond Civic would
no doubt take home that title.
If there is an award
for being the best sports channel on YouTube,
it would be sitting on my mantle which it is
because you're watching the 2019 Streamy Award-winning
YouTube channel for sports somehow.
- Donut Media.
(cheering)
(beeping)
- Whether it was watching the Fast and Furious,
playing Need for Speed
or simply walking across your high school parking lot,
there was a time when you could not escape the Honda Civic.
When you say tuner car, what do you think of?
Honda civic, nine out of 10 of you just said Honda Civic.
This particular Civic was the first turbocharged Type-R.
It did zero to 60 in 5.7 seconds.
It had a top speed of 168 miles per hour.
It had 306 HRSPRS for Peter's sake.
All of that came together to post a ring time of 7:50.6.
In a frikken Civic.
This is what the Honda Civic looked like in the 1970s.
What happened?
It's like the car version of Nolan,
massive self-improvement.
This is Nolan in 2004, okay?
This is Nolan today.
- [Announcer] Volkswagen Golf GTI Clubsport S.
- Speaking of cars that have been around since the 70s
and are known for being generally slow,
you might be surprised to see a VW Golf.
My most favoritest boy on this list.
Now I talked about the wide range
of engine options available in the Golf last week
in our episode about best first cars.
If you haven't watched that,
I'll put the link in the description below
but the golf GTI Clubsport S is the cream of the crop,
the bell of the ball,
the most vascular boy at the entire party.
Like the Honda Civic,
the Golf has also done a lot for tuning culture,
being another popular option
as an introductory tuner car
but in the year of 2016 Volkswagen power slid
onto the scene and just like the bears
who found Goldilocks napping in their home,
Volkswagen found everyone napping in their home
of Germany where the Nurburgring is and
let's just say they wanted their porridge back.
VW made 400 of these limited series souped up Golfs dubbed
the Clubsport S.
So, how did this humble hatch managed
to put down a time faster than a lot
of Ferrari's and Porches, also known as pee cars?
For one, it got an extra 45 HRSPRS
over the standard Clubsport along with a bunch
of electrical tweaks
to the suspension and stability control.
Remember, the ring is a treacherous hell
of twists and turns.
So staying stable is pretty important
when you're trying to set killer lap times
but VW also took a page from old man Renault's book,
stripping out the back seats
and fitting the front
with a lightweight aluminum sub frame
which cut weight and allowed it
to top out at 165 miles per hour in a Golf.
They decided to stick
with the radio and air conditioning though probably
because Volkswagen realized
that people like to bump tunes, okay?
And people don't like to be hot and sweaty even
when they're shattering records
but I think the coolest thing about this car is
that it honestly just looks like a regular Volkswagen car.
It's not even like fully race car'd out
with crazy wings and aero and stuff.
It's a Volkswagen.
They're about subtlety, I'm talking OEM plus.
That's a Golf.
- [Announcer] Honda Civic Type R
- Speaking of subtlety,
this next car is about as subtle as a whole herd
of fricking bees sticking you in the gosh darn face.
On a list chocked full of fast hatchbacks,
there was simply no way
that only one Honda Civic was gonna make the cut.
The upgrades
to the 2017 Civic Type R were surprisingly small.
The same two liter turbo charged (indistinct)
from that last Civic received only a small boost
in overall horsepower from 306 to 315 and yeah sure,
that's only a measly nine HRSPRS
but nine HRSPRS is all it took
for the Type R to knockoff nearly seven seconds
from the previous year's lap time.
Seven seconds is almost long enough to win a rodeo.
I am a huge fan of the current Civic Type R
and we talk about it quite a bit on this channel.
It looks like a freaking video game
both outside and inside and I've driven a lot of cars,
but the Civic Type R is easily up there
with the best cars I've ever driven.
Again, guys, I wanna remind you,
this was the Honda Civic in the 1970s.
- [Announcer] Lynk and Co 03 Cyan Concept.
- Okay, so I know that I said I'm only gonna talk
about production cars on this list
and I know this might
be stretching the definition of a production car
because it is quite literally a concept car
but we found it while researching this episode
and it deserves an honorable mention
because of its insane lap time
and I couldn't pass up showing you guys this weird new
front wheel drive super car and
what front wheel drive cars are capable of really.
So for the sake of this list,
I'm gonna call this thing number 1.5.
Lynk and Co is a Chinese slash Swedish car company
and this blue sedan simply called the 03 is their son
and the Cyan Concept did in no uncertain terms not come
to mess around.
This weird Concept holds the distinction
of having the fastest lap time
for a front wheel drive car at the Nurburgring as well
as being the first Chinese car to set a record.
It's also the fastest street legal four door
around the ring.
It has a two liter four cylinder engine that makes,
are you, sit down.
592 horse power.
592 Horse power from a four cylinder motor.
That's 296 HRSPR per liter.
That's 132 horse power per cylinder,
that's certified bonkers.
It's also got a top speed of 192 miles per hour.
In many ways,
the Cyan Concept is a perfect example of
how innovation has shattered
the front wheel drive stigma along
with some pretty huge records for good measure
but they only made one of them.
So it doesn't really count for this list.
So what is the fastest front wheel drive production car
in the world as of right now, June, 2020?
When I am recording this episode
on a beautiful Sunday morning
with my one of my best friends, Max.
- [Announcer] Renault Megane Trophy R.
- Wow!
Another Renault, who could have possibly seen it coming?
Oh my God.
It's a Renault.
like a phoenix rising from the ashes.
The Renault Megane RS Trophy R makes one final
three peat showing to snatch the lap record
from the Honda Civic.
The thing that really sets the Trophy R apart
from the other Renault's on this list is
that this model surprisingly
runs a smaller 1.8 liter engine making 296 HRSPRS,
finally proving, thank you,
that size in fact does not matter.
It's about having a good (beeping).
This bad boy features a mechanical LSD
to help keep power while cornering.
It also has a proprietary
all wheel steering system dubbed 4control.
This has led to the Trophy R setting track records
for circuits all over the world including Suzuka and Fuji.
Do not be jealous Nurburgring,
you are still my number one circuit.
The Trophy R proves that you can
be absolutely bat crap crazy fast
in a front wheel drive car as long
as you have $90,000 to spend
on a souped up version of an economy car.
I mentioned an episode of Wheelhouse hosted
by my friend Nolan earlier in this episode,
you should guys should check it out,
it's all about engine placement
and why companies put the engine in certain spots in a car,
it's really good.
Nolan's really great,
if you're not already a fan I think you should be
because I am.
Hit that subscribe button and the notification bell
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I hope you liked it.
If you wanna get some Donut gear,
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I love you.
- [Announcer] Honda Civic Type-R.