Best sleeper cars

What cars do you have that are "sleepers" I.E. cars that could hold their own in a race against sports and sports compacts that you wouldnt expect to.
Example: I have a 1994 Dodge shadow and i never thought that it had the balls that it does until i got behind the wheel, and then later found out that its acually a fairly popular sleeper car.

My 1994 Plymouth Voyager! Seriously, though, it can hold its own, at least against SUV's and the like. Most notably, it ate up a V8 Grand Cherokee. And when the race is over, you can even sleep in the back. Which is especially easy since I don't have any rear seats in it. :p

Looks like Dodge is the one to go with in this crowd...My pick for best ever sleeper car: Dodge Omni GLHS

Stock sleeper - Omni GLHS. People are like, WTF was that?! Favorite sleeper - my pickup.

Or how about a 1985 Plymouth Reliant? http://thedodgegarage.com/video/ned_supra_mpg.zip

i have a 67 chevelle and i left the 327 emblem on it but it really has a 454 with really quite mufflers! ppl are always laughing until i put my sign in the rear window "if you can read this your losing". then i blow the doors off em! they get all bent and i open the hood.

Mercedes E55 hands down. Nobody expects a 4-door mercedes with close to 500 horsepower and can go 0-60 in 4.5 seconds. :boink:

ya but most of those are considerd sports sedans and cars right, so i dont think a benz or a chevelle fit into this catagory, cuz i would expect most to be pretty fast on the line
what about a buick regal, they are ok for not looking very fast

Looks like Dodge is the one to go with in this crowd...My pick for best ever sleeper car: Dodge Omni GLHS

Close, but I would have to pick a Dodge Turbo mini-van. Nobody sees that coming. My LeBarons make excellent sleepers.

Close, but I would have to pick a Dodge Turbo mini-van. Nobody sees that coming. My LeBarons make excellent sleepers.

Yeah, forgot about the turbo vans, and if I forgot about them, then that means they are a really good sleeper. ;) Hey Polygon, you ever hang out at turbododge.com?

My brothers ride is a pretty decent sleeper when stock. Its a volvo S70 GLT....and that thing can actually haul some ass and smoke its tires.

the new nissan pathfinder armada.... 14 second 1/4 mile for a full sized, 4row SUV :)

the new nissan pathfinder armada.... 14 second 1/4 mile for a full sized, 4row SUV :)

Wow, look out rice!

how about the audi s8... has close to 500hp also... and its a sedan + awd... i think the m5 is also a good sleeper though it is getting a bit dated

Would you think my dad's Toyota 4runner is? I know it's not a car, but it beat some cocky dude's Mustang :)

An Audi S8 and a Mercedes E55 are in no way sleepers.

Taurus SHO manual v6... it can still burn a lot of today's new v6 FWD cars. Everyone knows the Maxima is fast, but only so many remember the retired Taurus SHO. Definitely a sleeper. :iceslolan

Buick Regal GS with the supercharged 3800. Nobody would expect a Grandpa Buick to perform like a Grand Prix GTP. :naughty:

buic reatta was a sleeper too.
I think the ultimate is the 11 second minivan.
It had a 350 with nitrous. very interesting to watch.

buicks and caddies

Most of the late 70's to late '80's GM rear whell drive cars make excellent sleepers, especially the Buicks and Caddys, as you say. They are relatively light, especially the Regal/Cutlass. They can take any big V8 your wallet can afford to build up. They can be made to handle well.
Also, if you leave all the grandma-mobile vinyl roof, chrome and stainless trim on them, (especially the full size), the deception is complete.

However, my favourite sleeper is any smaller AMC product. The Gremlins and Hornets are awesome. If people knew how fast and cheap there little jewels are, well, their price would be a lot higher. The best is an AMC Hornet 2 door fastback with a 401, or a SB chevy.

I dont own a sleeper car, but i think the best sleeper car is the 88-92 Lincoln Mark VII. Why? Well..its a Lincoln. Secondly, its big, has alot of chrome, and *probably* weighs alot. In reality it doent weigh much more then a 4th Gen Camaro Z28, comes with the 5.0L H.0. 225 HP Roller engine, and is capable of running mid-high 14's-15's.

Best stock sleeper would have to be the early 90's Toyota Mark II's which look like crap and are a 4 door car but come with a standard twin turbo v6 engine which is the same engine used in the older supras.

Best modified sleeper i've seen are 2:
1. 1989 crx which my friend owns and is completely stock on outside but is running an integra type R engine. This thing can almost keep up with my 300hp camaro.
2. 1998 Holden commodore which looks fully stock but is actually a supercharged V6. not as fast as the crx, but pretty damn fast for what looks like a stock V6.

Yeah, forgot about the turbo vans, and if I forgot about them, then that means they are a really good sleeper. ;) Hey Polygon, you ever hang out at turbododge.com?

Yeah, I'm a member over there. My user name is the same.

The ultimate best sleeper is the Eagle Talon TSi, nothing comes close. You get the all wheel drive version and you have a monster right out the box. It has a 24b turbo, which can easily be upgraded to the 16g monster turbo from Greddy. that is one bad ass car. don't care what anyone says.

I wouldn't really consider the Eagle Talon TSi a sleeper. They are great cars, but the TSi and Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX (basically the same car) are pretty well known as being both quick and easily modifiable to get lots of power out of them.

I wouldn't really consider the Eagle Talon TSi a sleeper. They are great cars, but the TSi and Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX (basically the same car) are pretty well known as being both quick and easily modifiable to get lots of power out of them.

Exactly, they are fast cars, but by no means sleepers.

How bout someone take a Syclone or Typhoon, remove the ground effects and emblems, and put oem wheels on it? that way u have a turbocharged awd truck that would blow away a decent spectrum of perfermance coupes while disguised as an underpowered everyday truck or suv....

Or how bout this.. take a car that nobody looks at for performance. they see this they think economy, sensible, ect ect. im talking aout the little plastic saturns.. my first car was a 95 sl 4 door sedan with a very modest 100hp 1.9 i-4 and a 5 speed.. however.. it was still somewhat driveable considering most the body panels are made from plastic and it weighs in at just over 2500 pounds.. and from what i understand they are a somewhat rugged mill to do a turbo conversion on. get some forged pistions to lower compression, a programmable ecu and a turbo with some custom plumbing and throw it all together.. keep the stock 14 inch steel wheels with hubcaps and u have prolly a mid 14 second 4 door family car that nobody gives a second glance with a 5 speed...

Everyone knows the Maxima is fast


:screwy: Maximas are not fast.

Best sleeper ever was in the 60's the plain jane biscayne, could be had with 4 doors, a bench seat and an aluminum 427 with a 4spd close ratio tranny.

http://www.turbominivan.com/

http://gomini.com/fs/vtec/vtec.htm

My brothers ride is a pretty decent sleeper when stock. Its a volvo S70 GLT....and that thing can actually haul some ass and smoke its tires.

My mom has a 98 S70 GLT. 5 Cylinder turbo goes 0-60 in 7 seconds or less and the quarter in about 15. I hear the 5 speed can break into the 14's.

an 83 dodge 600 turdo is a pretty sleepy ride my buddy got owned by one last week and he was in a an 86 camaro. :banghead:

Or how bout this.. take a car that nobody looks at for performance. they see this they think economy, sensible, ect ect. im talking aout the little plastic saturns.. my first car was a 95 sl 4 door sedan with a very modest 100hp 1.9 i-4 and a 5 speed.. however.. it was still somewhat driveable considering most the body panels are made from plastic and it weighs in at just over 2500 pounds.. and from what i understand they are a somewhat rugged mill to do a turbo conversion on. get some forged pistions to lower compression, a programmable ecu and a turbo with some custom plumbing and throw it all together.. keep the stock 14 inch steel wheels with hubcaps and u have prolly a mid 14 second 4 door family car that nobody gives a second glance with a 5 speed...

i agree with you. my bro has a saturn (click on the link in my sig and you can look at it) and before he put his banners on and aem and sps stickers on, and fog lights, nobody knew what was coming. now, everbody sees that stuff and they wanna race him, he just put cold air intake and a couple other little stuff and he beats a lot of people.

and different kind of sleeper is my car, a 1987 oldsmobile calais. everybody thinks that it is really really slow, but then i race them (cuz its fun) and i beat them (well, some of them), and they are like, wtf. cuz most of the people think i have a little four-cylinder, and then it is four door, so they think it is even slower. i have beaten a dodge neon and ford escort zx2.

no one has said 87 Regal T-Type, just about anyone nowadays can spot the Grand National looks. But the T-Type is the exact same thing except it looks like a normal everyday Regal.

The best sleeper I ever owned was a 1977 Olds 9 passenger station wagon. Worked with a good dealer and special ordered it. Had a 403 V8, Turbo 350 tranny, F-41 suspension, posi, heavy duty rims w/fat tires, and heavy duty cooling. Basically it was a 9 passenger TransAm. After the warranty expired, the smog stuff came off, the carb was reworked, and a low restriction exhaust fitted. This beast would do 140 with no sweat. The only thing that blew its cover was the exhaust noise - sounded like a late 60's muscle car. Hey - if you got to haul the kids around, you might as well have fun doing it.

Regards:
Oldengineer

excuse me for being dumb, but whats a sleeper? a fast car that doesn't look fast?

excuse me for being dumb, but whats a sleeper? a fast car that doesn't look fast?

Absolutely correct. A sleeper is a car that's a lot quicker that anyone expects it to be. For example - my grandfather had a 1966 light green 4 door plain jane Olds Cutlass sedan. It had skinny tires, drum brakes, a 2 speed automatic, and single exhaust. Under the hood was a 325HP, high output Olds Rocket 330. It wouldn't corner very well, it wouldn't stop very well, but, it was one hell of a drag car in its day.

Regards:
Oldengineer

no one has said 87 Regal T-Type, just about anyone nowadays can spot the Grand National looks. But the T-Type is the exact same thing except it looks like a normal everyday Regal.


THe GN reputiton if being drowed out by the noise of ricer mufflers and being blinded by their underbody neon kits. Only old timers and people really into cars know that a GN is fast. To most of the people around here, my car is just a spinoff of a montie carlo :rolleyes: . It looks mean but, it says buick on the grill so it must be slow. My vote goes towards all turbo buicks.

1980 Chevy Chevette...definately a sleeper...4dr

My father in law has a a V-6 camry, a 3.0 or a 3.5 not sure, with a five speed manual, I would love to give that thing an intake and a new set of headers and a cat, leave the tail stock, and then give it a low boost trubo to avoid turbo lag..

Taurus SHO manual v6... it can still burn a lot of today's new v6 FWD cars. Everyone knows the Maxima is fast, but only so many remember the retired Taurus SHO. Definitely a sleeper. :iceslolan

Buick Regal GS with the supercharged 3800. Nobody would expect a Grandpa Buick to perform like a Grand Prix GTP. :naughty:

I'm with this guy all the way, I own an 89 SHO. SHO's are high 14 sec cars, but on the highway can run with many low 13 sec. cars, they are excellent highway performers to say the least.

74-79 VW Rabbit. This littl' bunny's got teeth.
Any BMW 2002. The original European muscle car.

volvo S40 with a S60R engine swap

volvo S40 with a S60R engine swap



...good call. :iceslolan

is a sleeper just a stock car that doesn't look fast or can it be a completely modded car that goes really fast but doesn't look or sound fast? like how about getting a pony and trying to fit a big engine, like a v8 but i don't think it would fit, and a bunch of other upgrades.

Hell, I've seen a Reliant with a v8 in it.

My wife's car.......1990 Olds calais with a 3.3 195hp
It's pretty damned quick for such a plain looking car
http://files.automotiveforums.com/gallery/watermark.php?file=/500/133916Wife_s_car-med.jpg

My 98 nissan Maxima 5-spd 0-60 6.6 secs STOCK. And mine isn't exactly stock. Intake, cat-back exhaust, stage 2 clutch, ultra light-weight flywheel, underdrive pulley and a reprogrammed Ecu and not a lot of cosmetic meds. I run low 14's high 13's in the 1/4. :evillol:

:screwy: Maximas are not fast.
:sly: Can please tell me how you came to this conclusion, because i own one and I strongly disagree.

Do you have any time slips to back that up.
98 Maxima's 0-60 time is 7.1 secs. stock. according to an issue of R&T back in '98.
With the mods you've done you might get down to 6.6 if you were really lucky.
But half a second off your 0-60 time? I'm not saying you're wrong, it just seems a little far fetched.

i read an article in some rag a few months ago about sleepers and they had some good ones.

like a sonata with an eclispe gs-t engine in it. (noone will ever see that coming)

my personal fave is the standard z car with the small block swap. people expect it to be quick, but not that quick.

some other faves:
a miata with 5.0, and an old volvo sedan with a 383

though what would be the best sleeper in the world would be 12 second civic SI, rebaged to look like an EX, then with all the typical rice shit you see on civics, like the huge wing, the vinyl graphics, the ugly exhaust, the clear lights, fake type-r badges etc etc etc(you know the drill)

why? because you never expect rice to actually be fast. especially that fast.

Actually you're talking about the aotomatic ones. The 5-spd does a 0-60 run in about 6.6 secs
http://edmunds.com/used/1998/nissan/maxima/12852/specs.html?tid=edmunds.u.prices.leftsidenav..6.Nis san*
As for the quater mile times, I have a G-teck Pro-meter installed which tells you the quater mile times, With my current mods, the best I've gotten is 14.1s.

Nope, the test that was done that I read was with the five speed. Plus taking specs. from a Internet dealership that is hell bent on selling whatever they can sounds a little less convincing than a highly regarded automobile magazine.
Regardless, I don't really see how it would fall under the catagory of a sleeper.

May be it was a manual but I've shown you 6.6 sec run to 60 is possible. The fact is that the engine powering the the max is regarded as the one of the best V6 the automotive industry has ever seen. It has tremendous potential and stock it has a ability to diappoint many so called sports cars. Don't think because it has four doors its slow. It falls under the sleeper category because noone would expect a four-door family sedan to beat their sports car, especially mine as it has minor cosmetic mods.

...and what would these minor cosmetic mods be?
Not an ungodly large rear wing and a Fast and Furious body kit I hope.
Nobody will suspect a four-door family car?
What about the Altima 3.5SE, Subaru Forester 2.5XT, VW GTi VR6 or 1.8T, the Accord EX V6? Wouldn't those all be sleepers too?
They all run pretty close to the same times in stock form.
What more is it's quite easy to tell a car apart from being just another car to posers to people who actually know how to drive and are into motorsports.
Especially people with newer cars.
I'm sure it's a good car, 14.1 isn't bad for any car. I just fail to see how it fall undre the catagory of sleeper.
Maybe I'm just being picky, but it seems more of a car that falls under the catagory of another plain production car that has enough oomph from the engine that makes the owner wanna go out and get some Neuspeed sticker to put on their door and call it a racecar.

Lighten up a bit dude, I am not someone who would put any type of stickers or huge spoilers on their car. As a matter of fact I don't even have a stock spoiler. The Cosmetic mods I was talking bout was the HID headlights, the dual exhaust, the lowered suspension and the the 17" rims. I don't have have any bodykits and nor do I have any stickers. I don't know why you would make such assumptions about me and my car but surely they don't make you look any smarter. The stock 5-spd are very quick but, read my post carefully, I never said taht the stock ones were a sleeper. I called MY Max a sleeper. 14.1 sec 1/4 mile (well into 13's w/ good tires) is into 350Z teritorry and I think you would agree that a 350Z is a fast car. For a 6 year old 4-door sedan that looks stock hanging or beating a 350Z is very impressive and therefore makes it a quite a good sleeper. You shouldn't go around and talk shit about you don't even know. You said that I could not drive... how the hell would you know? Have you ever seen me drive? I wouldn't think so. It is not very smart to make assumptions bout people you don't know.

Calm down son, I'm not attacking you. I said I hope you weren't one of the fast and furious people, that's a good thing! I simply asked what the mods were.
Is your car fast? Yes. Is it a sleeper not really. That's what I'm saying.
Do you read the other posts?
Have you read what has been disscused as to what a sleeper is or should be like?

Sleeper - a car that looks slow, but really is not.
Stock Maxima does not look fast.
My maxima looks stock and therefore does not look fast. My mods make the car fast.
So my car dosn't look fast but it is.
Now that I spelled everything out for ya, explain how this is not a sleeper son.

It is a sleeper. :grinno:

It is a sleeper. :grinno:
LOL... :iceslolan