Hot Tuner 2016: Best Bang For Your Bucks

In any performance-based competition, an R35 GT-R with the wick turned up to 11 is going to give the top step a fair shake, so it’s not a huge surprise to see the Hi-Torque Nissan win this year’s Hot Tuner outright.

Not everyone has the best part of a quarter-million to drop on a modified machine, though, so how do things shake out when we include each participants’ price tag in the equation?

To find out we dusted off our trusty Bang For Your Bucks formula, tweaked to suit the Hot Tuner format. With our limited data set we used each car’s lap time (70 per cent) and its lap v-max and Turn One and Seven apex speeds (10 per cent each) to make up its ‘Bang’ score (performance), which is then indexed so we have comparative values for the whole field.

The same process was applied to each car’s price – its ‘Bang’ score – and the two scores combined with a 50:50 weighting to give a final BFYB score. And the outcome? In third place with a scored of 118.95 sits the BWA Auto Golf R, a deserved result for a car that performed well in all disciplines without costing the earth.

Perhaps surprisingly, in second place, with a BFYB score of 128.58, is the Hi-Torque R35 GT-R, which just goes to show how outrageous its level of performance is.

Which leaves the Harding Performance Golf R as our Bang For Your Buck winner, its second-placed 63.8sec lap time combining well with its $86K price tag. Congratulations Harding Performance.

BANG FOR YOUR BUCK: RANKED