I have realized through reading the posts that there is a ton of talk about the lack of torque and the fact the arguement is made frequently that "given the same horsepower, the car with the higher torque is faster" etc. Rarely do you have a true apples to apples comparison to illustrate that truly it is simply horsepower that matters.
I found this old video tonight. I actually for god knows why, I was watching youtube review on the new Dart. I give it to dodge, they are doing great marketing and catch commercials! Within 5 minutes I got bored of that and looked for some M videos. This old "shootout: Sibling rivalry" came up.
E92 m3 6-speed with 414hp/295foot pounds vs. Dinan 335 with 408 horsepower/450 foot pounds
Both 6-speeds, both weigh 3600 or so pounds per their spec sheet. They did slalam, a laptime and a quarter-mile. M3 won in everything but what I thought was relevent to this torque vs hp talk was the quarter mile. That is a purely straight-line race which if anything should give a car with low-end torque the advantage, especially given it has the same horsepower as the m3.
However as you see in the results the m3 is faster in a straight line from a standstill despite being down 150 foot pounds of torque and having equal horsepower, equal transmission and equal weight.
Now I am not sure how anyone can refute the claim that it is truly horsepower that dictates acceleration for a given weight.