Say “hooligan,” and most will picture alcohol-fed football (soccer) fans of limited tooth count smashing one another in the face. Their vehicular equivalents have a similar appetite for volatile fuels—you’ll see no vehicle here listed on any EPA “greenest” list. The applied violence here, however, results in nothing more than glares from onlookers and childish laughter inside the cabin from such behavior as burnouts, power slides, large applications of torque, and general tomfoolery.



Smooth is fast, but sideways is fun. Why? Because it is. Those who don’t get sideways won’t like burnouts, either. It’s like asking a certain segment of the population why they insist on using pillow shams, which should be removed before using a pillow for things such as sleeping.

These cars are built to take the abuse. Outsize personalities need to be backed up by overbuilt hardware, and these vehicles deliver. Although hooligan vehicles might look a bit menacing, their talents aren’t always overtly broadcast. Often, those that boast loudest fail, such as Chevrolet’s thankfully offed SSR. Driving it was like tucking an oversized, blunt bowie knife into your belt and walking around a sporting goods show.

Torque and hooliganism go together like Sunday mornings and winding roads. All the vehicles here dish it up—except for maybe the last one, a shortcoming easily compensated for with total mechanical indifference (think rental car) and dutiful applications of gravity (all cars accelerate at the same speed when pushed off a cliff).

View Photos MIKE SIMARI, DAVID DEWHURST, AARON KILEY, MORGAN SEGAL, THE MANUFACTURERS

2008 Chevrolet Corvette Z06

It’s rare indeed that a car capable of truly exotic performance still welcomes a stiff paddling. The resulting wails and shrieks from engine and tires are not like those of a chastened child but of a happily spanked BDSM participant. It’s amazing that this 505-hp vehicle was conceived and produced in one of the most risk-averse and litigious countries on earth. The Z06 delivers speed on the end of a long, sharp blade, whereas most others in the same performance index hand you a safety razor. Want to drive really fast? Avail yourself of a couple inches of pedal travel. Want to punish tires, your ribs, and your passenger? Ask in anger, and the Z06 will respond in kind, its talents delivered with a wicked grin.

View Photos MIKE SIMARI, DAVID DEWHURST, AARON KILEY, MORGAN SEGAL, THE MANUFACTURERS

2008 Dodge Charger SRT8

Few vehicles offer proof of complicity regarding the automotive/big-oil cabal quite as well as the burnout machine that is the Dodge Charger SRT8. The petroleum industry gets a twofer when you romp on the go pedal, burning gas and tires in voluminous quantities. Hell, we’re surprised the EPA doesn’t require the rear tires to pass some kind of particulate-matter dispersion test, such is the inevitability of their going up in smoke. Asking the SRT8 or, more precisely, the insta-maniac at the wheel, to behave is as futile a gesture as pleading with your dog not to go hunting for treats in the cat box. The easily located button ridding your afternoon of traction control gives blessing to the smoky trinity of 425 horsepower, rear-wheel drive, and a total lack of mechanical empathy.

View Photos MIKE SIMARI, DAVID DEWHURST, AARON KILEY, MORGAN SEGAL, THE MANUFACTURERS

2008 Ford Mustang GT500KR

Few things can conjure the glory days of the muscle-car era like axle tromp, that terrible bouncing of spinning tires that is unfortunately a bit inevitable when you’re channeling the torque of almost four Ford Focus engines through a solid rear axle. The 540 horsepower and 510 pound-feet of torque are simply the most power a manufacturer has had the balls to send through a muscle-car-era rear suspension, knowing damn well what would happen: burnouts, worn suspension bushings, more burnouts, and happy customers with a gut full of Shelby Kool-Aid. The temptation to fry tires might be tempered by the KR’s price tag—$79,995 plus the cost of a Focus or two, depending on how unfriendly your friendly neighborhood Ford dealer is feeling.

2008 GMC TopKick

Few celluloid moments have made us as proud to be American—or as ready to join in the fight against apartheid—as when Mel Gibson strapped his GMC Sierra 3500 dualie pickup to an illegally funded mansion in Lethal Weapon 2 and tore it off the foundations. Car and Driver had a similar moment, minus moral justification, when we used a GMC TopKick to raze a small and tired barn. This probably could have been accomplished with a lawn tractor, but why go squirrel hunting with a BB gun when you can roll up with a howitzer? The GMC TopKick Ironhide edition, as seen in Transformers and available at any GMC dealer, is available with a chuffing 8.1-liter V-8 making 450 pound-feet of torque or a 6.6-liter turbo-diesel making up to 620 pound-feet of quivering torque. Either will be more than happy to turn you into the Shiva of construction, destroying buildings such that others can rise anew.

MIKE SIMARI, DAVID DEWHURST, AARON KILEY, MORGAN SEGAL, THE MANUFACTURERS

2008 Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8 / 2008 Chevrolet TrailBlazer SS

The Grand Cherokee SRT8 and the Trailblazer SS are like a pair of linebackers waiting to smack the back of your head with bountiful torque. They both employ big, nasty American V-8s to accelerate large, heavy, box-shaped forms from a stop with alacrity usually reserved for sleek, lithe-looking things. No burnouts from the Jeep, thanks to four-wheel drive, but effortless stoplight victories in either require only judicious application of brake and throttle and perhaps the subsequent talents of a good traffic lawyer.

View Photos MIKE SIMARI, DAVID DEWHURST, AARON KILEY, MORGAN SEGAL, THE MANUFACTURERS

2008 Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG

The only thing more irresponsible than being a hooligan is being a hooligan with four terrified, carsick, or whooping passengers. The C63 produces entirely improbable acceleration numbers, crushing proper sports cars such as the Audi R8. That 60 mph comes in just 3.9 seconds from a vehicle with two-wheel drive means the button marked ESP (for Electronic Stability Program) is essentially a lighter strapped to the fuse of an expensive, fuel-fed smoke bomb. Just fore of the steering wheel, which features a flat bottom à la DTM race cars, are paddle shifters, the better to slash through each of seven forward gears and snap, crackle, and pop your way back down the cogs; engine overrun here is a pleasurable-sounding thing and sure to worry fellow commuters. We can’t forget the CLK63 AMG Black Series, essentially a two-door version of the sedan with 500 horsepower, evil bodywork, no back seat, and an exhaust roar Wagner would write into an opera.

View Photos MIKE SIMARI, DAVID DEWHURST, AARON KILEY, MORGAN SEGAL, THE MANUFACTURERS

2008 Nissan Frontier NISMO 2WD

Sometimes spinning tires puke smoke; sometimes they sling mud, sand, and gravel. The two-wheel-drive Nissan Frontier NISMO combines a bunch of stuff we like: a rock-solid chassis shared with the big-brother Titan, a 261-hp V-6, and rear-wheel drive with an electronically controlled limited-slip differential. We’re surprised there isn’t an optional navigation system that directs you to mud pits and sand dunes, because that’s exactly where we’d go to get stupid. The NISMO model boasts Bilstein off-road shocks and skid plates to ward off warranty claims by owners doing things that we’re, um, not suggesting they do. Just ask stadium and desert truck racers. Rear-wheel drive and abundant power place one steering mechanism in your hands and the other below your right foot. Enjoy.

View Photos MIKE SIMARI, DAVID DEWHURST, AARON KILEY, MORGAN SEGAL, THE MANUFACTURERS

2008 Mazdaspeed 3

Your chances are better of hitting the lottery than the Mazdaspeed 3’s EPA combined fuel-economy figure of 20 mpg. This has nothing to do with governmental agency incompetence (amazingly) or any mechanical deficiency; it’s simply nigh impossible to keep your right foot much off the floor. Mazda even equipped the 2.3-liter, turbocharged engine with direct injection to aid in fuel economy and emissions, and alas, this also helped it make more midrange torque. It’s this grunt, made into a propensity for apex munching through superb suspension tuning and a limited-slip differential, that makes you want to drive less than responsibly, all the time. Mazda gets a demerit only for limiting the amount of turbo boost, and thus power produced, in first and second gears in an effort—thankfully failed—to disallow owners the joy of shredding front tires, however less pleasurable it is than shredding rear tires.

View Photos MIKE SIMARI, DAVID DEWHURST, AARON KILEY, MORGAN SEGAL, THE MANUFACTURERS

2008 Subaru Impreza WRX STI

No car does dirt better than the Subaru WRX and STI. They were born to do one thing: cover a stretch of dirt, tarmac, snow, or all three faster than any other vehicle. A gaggle of World Rally Championships says they do it well, and few cars feature the results of motorsports experience—including advanced all-wheel-drive systems and big turbocharged power—as directly and at as pedestrian a price. You can even slide a hot-dog cart in the dirt, but few vehicles feel so absolutely at home doing so as Subaru products.

View Photos MIKE SIMARI, DAVID DEWHURST, AARON KILEY, MORGAN SEGAL, THE MANUFACTURERS

Your First Car

This scribe’s first car was a Chevrolet Beretta GT shared with his sister. Any enthusiast will embrace whatever it is he or she has, often polishing a turd; as such, I owned the best-detailed Beretta in the Northeast. Then there was the third-hand, ragged-but-quick 1989 Taurus SHO, from which I learned that some cars require you to own both metric and standard tool sets; that the Japanese, in this case Yamaha, do it better; and that few things are as fun as watching your passengers’ faces when you “forget” to apply the brakes when pulling into parking spots fronted by concrete walls. First-car ownership usually coincides with high school, where physics class formulas can help you calculate the speed required to jump the ditch in your neighbor’s field and auto shop is available to help you weld in new shock towers while you curse Bo Duke, who made it look so easy.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io