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      09-01-2013, 03:45 AM   #43
LarThaL
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Drives: 2011 M3
Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: West Springfield, MA

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Endless619 View Post
Didn't Japan have a restriction on cars in the 1980s and 1990s to 290hp or something like that? I remember reading that over ten years ago.

Otherwise we could have seen the 1991-2005 Acura NSX with 300-400hp 20 years ago. I remember the R34 stock numbers were low too.
It was like 20 years ago. In the early-mid 90's there was a wave of turbocharged performance cars to come from Japan. (Supra, 300Z, Mitsubishi 3000GT, Mazda RX-7) This was the beginning of an unrelenting war in horsepower. In about 2000 or so, that wave shifted from Japan to Europe, then back to include the good old USA with the muscle car renaissance.

I remember back to 1999, when I bought my first "nice" car, a B5 platform Audi S4. Stock it came with 250hp and 258lb-ft. With an ECU upgrade (no flash back then, you had to physically solder a chip onto the ECU board), it put out over 320hp and people were shitting their pants over that kind of power and performance.
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