Jeff Davis | Vent Section Manager

Have any of you ever heard of the Ford Probe GTR? Or the Honda Civic HX Type R? Perhaps you've heard of the Dodge Neon Type R? Or the Dodge Neon Twin Turbo? Maybe you've driven past a Saturn LS2 Type R. Or a Ford Mustang LX 5.0.

I see these cars everywhere. And for some reason my stock Nissan Maxima can blow right past all of them despite the incredible engines these cars must have. I mean, wow, those are Type R and 5.0 V6 liter engines! Those things must make the car go really fast! I wonder what my car has over them?

All right boys and girls, this is where you smack me upside the head and say, "Jeff, you big dork, those are just logos." And you're darn right.

I grew up around cars. It's pretty hard to fool me when it comes to these things. And I've been subscribing to the same car magazines for over ten years. I can tell you what almost every car in production today has as an engine option.

And decals that you can buy in any catalog won't convince me that your Geo Metro has a Type R engine.

What does all this Type R and 5.0 stuff mean? A Type R engine is a Japanese engine that has variable valve timing technology. It can be found in most rally cars of the culture, many Japanese street-legal models and some of the cars they import to the States. The other companies have variants of this engine as well. This technology, in one form or another, is slowly making its way into American factories but credit for masterminding this engine belongs entirely to Japan.

Your ten-year-old Ford Probe didn't come with it as an option, Speed Racer. Neither does the base model Honda Civic. And if all you can afford is a car like this, you can't afford to buy the engine to stuff in the bay in lieu of the four-banger that is actually better suited for the car.

If, by some incredible defiance of natural physics and metallurgy, you put one of these monsters in a Civic HX, wouldn't you remove the HX logo too?

The Mustang LX is a V6-powered Mustang of a few years ago (the car is still offered but I'm not sure what it's badged as). The V6 engine was a crude overhead valve six cylinder, quite similar to Ford's Vulcan V6 they put in their popular Taurus models. The Vulcan-equipped Tauruses don't exactly burn rubber, and neither do these older V6 Mustangs.

Even more amusing is the Mustang GT I saw a few days ago. It was a new model, one that is badged as having a 4.6 liter engine. Truth be told, Ford has been fitting the GT models with the 4.6 for some time, but a few years back badged the car with a "5.0" logo. The car I saw was new, but had both a 4.6 badge and a 5.0 badge.

I may have gotten some of the technical information wrong here, but I can tell you that there is no Ford Probe GTR and there certainly isn't a Dodge Neon Twin Turbo. Not sold stock anyway. These cars would make great racers if someone with the proper finances, time and know-how made the adjustments.

So until I run across such an instance, I'm left wondering: is it my soccer-mom hubcaps that make me go fast?