The idea of a “sleeper” car has been around forever and a day, but the identity of such a machine has changed drastically over the years. In the sixties, that description would most often be applied to a bare-bones sedan with blackwall tires and dog dish hubcaps concealing a monster motor under the hood. Often, they were so stripped out that they fooled about as many people as an unmarked cop car (meaning nobody). Today, and over the last twenty years or so, “sleepers” are much harder to identify.
Let’s say you’re idling at a light in a Bullitt-style 1968 Charger R/T, the 440 V8 burbling away under the hood. You barely notice the car that pulls up next to you, since it has to be one of the dorkiest-looking rides you’ve ever seen:
Spacer
“An early 2000s Subaru wagon? Pffft,” you think as you return your focus to readiness for the green light, for you’ll soon need all your Real Man-ness to wrangle that fire-breathing 440. The light changes, you punch it, and the intersection rapidly recedes in the rear-view mirror. But what’s that by your rear bumper, very much not eating your dust? Why it’s The Brave Little Toaster That Could, about to pass your muscle car. What the hell?
Yes, the 6.1-second zero-to-sixty the Charger 440 can pull off is impressive, but it can’t match the 5.3-second sprint that Car and Driver got out of a manual-equipped 2003 Subaru Forester 2.5XT. You and your mighty Mopar just got walked by a nature conservancy employee, and now you can read her COEXIST bumper sticker.
Now that is a sleeper. Could your day get any worse?
Passing the high-end Senior Living Center down the block, a big old 2008 Buick Lacrosse pulls into the right lane as you pass in your Charger. At the stop sign, the grey-haired driver rolls down his window and asks, “That thing got a Hemi?” Before you can answer, the octogenarian matts the pedal and the Buick just disappears. You try to give chase but the two-year-only 2008-2009 Lacrosse Super packed a 5.3-liter V8 good for sixty in 5.7 seconds. Grandpa just shut you down. Sleeper!
Geez, maybe you should try to race that twenty-two-year-old Altima over there, right? It says 3.5SE on the trunk lid – that’s a V6, but how fast could it be? Plenty. With a manual transmission, it can rip off a 5.9-second run to sixty. Our own Stephen Gossin found one a while back, and didn’t believe me when I told him his rental-car-looking Nissan was deceptively quick. When Stephen texted “HOLY SH*T” not long thereafter, I did not have to guess what he was excited about.
Sleepers are everywhere! Do you own one, or have you driven one you’d like to share? Or, maybe you study the specs of cars as religiously as some baseball fanatics catalog RBIs and can handily ID all the unlikely cars poised to ruin a Mustang or Camaro owner’s day. Let us know!
Those old Pre-‘71 Skylark,Cutlass,Nova 350 4 Barrel base coupes were actually pretty fast.They were light and with the right tires/gearing were able to surprise a lot of people.Just don’t to try to turn or stop too quickly.
I’m not particularly a speed freak. However, I often feel like one when I borrow my dad’s 2014 Sienna. Yeah, it’s only 250 horses, but the pedal tuning is ridiculously touchy from a stop. It takes an incredibly light touch to get it moving smoothly.
But then again, 99%+ of my driving since I started in 2013 has been in either an Econoline-150 or a Prius v, so I’m sure that contributes.
You’d have loved GM’s quick tip-in throttles of the ’90s – they gave their various 4 cyl sport coupes a strong off the line feel, at least for a second or two. It was a neat little trick to give otherwise economy cars a little dash of sport, right up there with jazzy seat fabrics and standard tachs.
Newman/ Letterman Volvo Wagon?
Forrester of all strips is just a sleepy car not a sleeper for sure.
R63 AMG: Psuedo Minivan/SUV/Wagon styling not knowing what it wants to be. Wheels were larger than the standard R-series, but looked more like a appearance package over a performance one. All the 6.3 AMG goodies, the one modification you needed was some dental floss and some gentle goo-gone usage.
To old me, it was the BMW 2002. Terrible on paper, occasionally to constantly frustrating; but a joy to drive. Then the internet came along and prices got stupid.
Similarly, because I have one, BMW bavaria. Same formula: biggest engine with the base trim. They were ignored in favor of the CS coupes, but like the 2002s, the prices have now become stupid.
Ford used to do the same thing with Mustangs – the GTS models got you the base car but with the GT’s powertrain and suspension. No power anything, terrible seats, etc. so nobody wanted them then…
I’d take a Fox 5.0LX over a GT almost any day. And you could still opt it out with all of the niceties if I recall.
IIRC, they were only available in coupe form b/c that was the lightest, stiffest configuration (it might surprise some people that Mustangs could once be had with hatchbacks!)
You could get a Mustang 5.0 LX hatch. Loved them.
I don’t think you could get the appearance stuff (side skirts, cheese grater tail lights).
2025 Honda Odyssey Elite, my wife figured out very quickly that it was quicker than the 2018 Odyssey was.
The 2004-05 V6 Saturn Vue was a sleeper for the time. GM crammed a 3.5L Honda V6 and 5 speed auto in there. It was good for 250hp and a 0-60 of 7 seconds. It was pretty fast for a compact SUV.
I had a Lacrosse Super, and it was a bigger transmission cooler away from being a wonderful car. Great for road trips and invisible to the Highway Patrol.
Also, V6 Camrys and Avalons will cover some ground.
The 2003-04 Infiniti M45. Anonymous styling, V8 under the hood.
First gen Infiniti M45, looks sedate has 340hp.
Kona N. Looks like an N-line (except cooler colors), pretty quick and fun.
Mid-2000s Honda Accord Hybrid – .3 seconds faster 0-60 than the standard V6. Not fast by today’s standards but sub-7 seconds when most cars with a hybrid badge lost 2-3 seconds to the non-hybrids version.
A lot of plug in hybrids could make the list, since they usually don’t detune the gas motor to make up for the increases from the electric one.
Yeah but this was 2005 when hybrids like the Prius were the butt of jokes on the Tonight Show and Dodge was just rolling out their “that thing go a Hemi?” ads. In the last several years though it seems like half the cars on the road are sleepers.
My best buddy drives a 3.5 maxima with a manual. They are surprisingly quick, though getting it to hook up takes a bit of skill for sure. I daily a Saab 92x (WRX Wagon with an STI steering rack) that people tend to look right past, but it can actually boogie pretty well.
In some kind of a last hurrah before they finished making cars in Australia (2008), Mitsubishi released a performance-enhanced version of the Magna Series III 380 VRX model. It was powered by a supercharged version of the standard 3.8-litre V6 engine, now producing 230 kW (310 hp) and 442 N⋅m (326 lb⋅ft). The car was claimed to take six seconds over the 0–100 km/h (0–62 mph) sprint and was sold exclusively painted in TMR (Team Mitsubishi Racing) Red with a full body kit, 19-inch chrome alloy wheels. TMR was their equivalent of TRD for Toyota.
There was also the 4wd Magna (2003 / 2004)
https://www.carsguide.com.au/car-reviews/talking-dirty-8546
89-95 Thunderbird SuperCoupe. The only exterior clue is on the back bumper.
My ex girlfriend have an Acura ILX with a K24 and the 8 speed DCT, that thing was faster than you think for a relatively plain white sedan…. I also drove one time a Buick Lacrosse with the 3.6 300 ish horsepower engine and that thing was too fast for it’s own good.
Sleepers might be my favorite segment of performance vehicles, and I’ve owned several:
LTD LX was not particularly fast in the stock state of tune, BUT you could fix that with a bit of work.
It was the fastest American sedan you could buy in 1984 and 1985. Not exactly a high bar but this is the same era when Corvettes barely had 200 HP, so it was reviewed favorably in the context of its time.
And Canada! Don’t forget the 134 Marquis LTS that were made
It is my dream to find a Marquis LTS and bring it down here. I have owned 3 LTD LXs so the LTS is my white whale. I run a Facebook group for these cars and there are only a couple of LTS owners in there. I suspect most of them met the crusher after a few snowy Canadian winters.
Related story, the ’85 LTD LX that I have owned since 2001 was previously owned by a Ford parts counter guy (and he continued to be until his passing last year), and back in ’85 he happened to be a parts counter guy at a Mercury dealer here in San Diego and he recalled receiving in some Marquis LTS tail lights to stock. He knew the cars were only sold in Canada so he sent them back. Oh to have those tail lights now!
Anybody on the FB page done the right thing and taken the LX bits off of a rusty car and put them on a wagon?
Depends what you mean. Or how pedantic you are.
Mechanically, kinda, plenty of V8 swapped wagons, including some built to handle even using IRS, but I don’t think anyone literally swapped the stock asthmatic 5.0 HO and drivetrain from an LX over.
Many of the LX specific exterior parts only fit the sedan. I’ve seen a couple of wagons with the factory LX center console swapped in. That’s a rare piece.
That’s true- LTD is my favorite nose but obviously from the windshield back a Fairmont or 81 Granada would be the same thing.
When I read “sleeper car” I had a different take than yours. I’m nominating the ‘61-‘66 Rambler Classic with its flat folding from bench seats as a sleeper car.
That flat folding rear bench is freaking awesome. Also, first generation Charger rear seats fold down and the arm rest folds forward to create a large flat area under the hatch.
Loved those, too. Had a ‘68, but it lacked many of qualities of the first gen Charger, especially that sloping, flat glass back.
I really want a first gen Charger. I love the roofline, love the 4 seats, love the fold flat thing, and I LOVE the gauge cluster. It is my absolute favorite dashboard, full stop. Alas, while decent ones can be had for reasonable sums, even reasonable sums are more than I’ve ever spent on a car at once.
Right there with you. Best dash ever. Wish I’d been less of a boy racer back in the day when I bough my Charger and Super Bee, because the ‘66 and ‘67s were there to be had cheap and in the long run it’s a more distinctive car.
Electroluminescent for the win!
Why, whatever could you be implying you need that for? ????
(Happy memory: I had a GF in HS and some of college who was “on and off” with me through the years. But even when we were “off,” we were definitely friends with benefits.
In HS, during an “off” phase, she conspired to get a friend with a Pinto to come “kidnap” me. The game was to blindfold me, throw me in the back, and drive around to see if I could keep track of where we were. I was a paramedic in the area and knew it like the back of my hand, so there was no challenge, there.
But then the GF decided I needed to be distracted during the ride. Now, that was fun! I shoulda made a swap with the friend, though, at one point. [Hey! We were on a break!]
Anyway. Yeah, fold-flat seats or floors have multiple uses.)
My father and I camped out in our 62 and 65. Great memories.
I had a 1966 Rambler Classic wagon. The bed was crazy cool and comfortable. My ex and I camped at the Daytona Speedway infield during a multi-day car show.
My best friend in high school had a ‘66 Classic 770 wagon. Best drive-in car ever.
Mine was a lowrider with hydraulics. With a Weber 2-barrel carb and open header, it drove pretty well!
Excellent! Miss those old wagons. SUVs and crossovers just aren’t the same.
Although it does have some outward appearance upgrades, most folks wouldn’t think your 1984-1985 Volvo 245 Turbo Intercooler was anything more than your mom’s wagon.
My coworker said that he had one with a Laycock de Normanville J-Type electric overdrive.
SHO, 95 even had the sho spoiler on the slow.
I’d say the final gen counts as a sleeper. They weren’t svelte, they were contemptibly familiar, but the SHO model with the AWD and the twin turbo ecoboost would get the job done. One of my favorite reviews of the time went along the lines of “she’s big, but when you mash the pedal, she squats down then takes off like a scalded cat.”
I owned one for a stint and I can confirm they were mind bogglingly quick. It wouldn’t win any agility contests but man it would melt your face off in a straight line.
Infiniti FX50
You can get a flash tune on the last gen ford fusion sport with the ecoboost v6 that gives it between 3-400 hp (if i recall) and similar torque I’m pretty sure? Paired with awd for a quick launch along with the fact that no one has ever taken a second glance at a fusion. it’s my friend’s ideal sleeper car
4,000lbs says the market was already covered by the edge.
And before that LaCrosse Super, there were a bunch of Buicks with the supercharged 3800 that was almost as fast!
All the V6 midsize sedans would qualify. The Altima V6, Accord V6, Camry V6. Also, the 4th gen Maxima had 0-60 in 6.6s with the manual, even on the base model
Any modern boring EV is a sleeper LOL
The Mercedes B-Class was sold in Canada but not the US from 2006-2011. The W245 B200 was available with or without a turbo. The turbo is fucking fast, worthy of an AMG badge. It was even available with a 6-speed manual (the non-turbo got a 5-speed). Both were available with a CVT but of course not the famous Jatco Xtronic CVT 😛
The 03-06 Vibe GT is also a good candidate. It was available with the gray plastic cladding and black door handles like base model shit has, but with the 2ZZ-GE from the Elise 😀
Absolutely the 3800 supercharged variant, especially series 2, when modified, or bolted inside a 91 Riviera which weighs a lot less than the 03 Bonneville my engine came out of and the Riv has the 3.06:1 final drive. They’ll surprise some folks for sure.
I have to agree with you on V6-powered sedans through the 90s and early 2000s. There was quite a number of compact and mid-size sedans that were light enough and had sufficient grunt under their hoods to school drivers running more sport-focused rides. Four doors didn’t have to equal boring.
Canada also got the second generation B-Class as the gas-powered B250 (where the US only got the electric variant). Goes like a GTI in a straight line, looks like it’s either driven by 80 year olds of indeterminate European origin to whom it’s still 1975 and Mercedes builds the best cars in the world, or middle-aged urbanites who’d really rather not drive, and casually drop how much better Amsterdam is into most conversations.
As a bonus, it’s getting cheap used because it’s too sensible for people trying to flex on a budget and not sensible enough for people who’ll end up with something Japanese or Korean.
Any time I see a Forester turbo, I remember when I took my 2010 non-turbo in for service. When I said, “yeah, I really wish I had the turbo version”, the service manager looked me in the eye very seriously and said, “no, you don’t”
Bwahahaha!
Yeah, they do have a reputation to uphold…
It was my favorite car until the turbo exploded. Then it was my favorite again after I replaced the turbo.
Then it spun a bearing.
No more subarus.
You don’t need the clunky, tedious, ugly, antiquated, terrible, bad “manual” transmission for that V6 Altima to be quick. It’ll actually be even better with the other transmission option available, the Jatco Xtronic CVT. Optimal power delivery, and better efficiency. Why shift gears yourself when you can skip past gears altogether?
that came the generation after 😛
Ah, semantics
Dude, you couldn’t even handle the torque from the standard engine for more than 50,000 miles.
Why’d you have to insult his mom like that
I’ve had friends with both a Forester XT and the Legacy GT also with the same drivetrain and I’ll have to say that the Legacy is a better sleeper as the flat floor is long enough for me to sleep on, whereas the Forester is about 6″ too short. (6’1″ when standing)
How tall is the Forester when you’re laying down?
Roughly an arm’s length 🙂
This guy gets it