We call them sleepers—cars that look staid, placid, and avuncular on the road until you hit the pedal and it leaves everything around it, and in front of it, biting the dust. Basically, cars that have zero style but come armed with powerful engines. The best sleeper cars in America? Try the COPO Camaro, which looked like a normal Camaro but jetted nearly 500 horses, with no exterior difference to make it stand out. The Ford Taurus SHO is another excellent example.
In Europe, they are called Q cars. The name comes from Q warships, designed to look like merchant ships but with enough firepower to smoke an enemy and blast it into the farthest recesses of hell.
Call them sleepers or Q cars, some European cars take the cake when it comes to having the killer combination of unassuming looks and top speeds that leave most with jaws agape.
Here are 10 European cars that no one knew were this fast, and with good reason.
10 1959 Jaguar Mark II
Pretty early in the day for a sleeper, right? The Mark II came with stately looks, the kind that went with the crème-de-la-crème of the ‘50s and ‘60s gentry, and also with equally precise and mannered 2.4- and 3.4-liter engines.
But then came a 3.8-liter mill that made some 200 horses back in the day, letting this car hit 62 mph in 8.5 seconds. Sounds slow today but back then, the cops had a tough time with this car till they got them as Panda cars themselves.
9 2012 Volkswagen Golf R
The seventh-generation of the Volkswagen Golf had an ace up its sleeve, the Golf R. Unless you were really observant, the Golf R looked like just one of the many, many, many Golfs around. To spot a Golf R, you had to look at the exhaust tips, because it came with a quad-exhaust.
The 2.0-liter turbocharged inline-four jetted 260 horses and 243 ft-lb of torque, hitting 60mph in less than five seconds, making other Golf owners wonder what really happened to their cars.
8 2008 Audi S6
Again, unless you are a true cognoscente who looks closely at car behinds to spot quad exhausts, the Audi S6 will look like just another puffed-up executive saloon car to you, replete with all the luxury that an Audi naturally comes with, given that price tag.
And yet, someone at Audi pulled a fast one by fitting a V10 from a Lamborghini Gallardo, detuned to 435 horses and 398 ft-lb, which made this sedan hit 62 mph in 5.2 seconds. So sure, some Audis are built for speed but usually, they wear RS badging.
7 2008 Skoda Superb
The Skoda Superb is not known for being a performance car. It's more fleet than anything, or simply a typical European small-time executive car. Well, not in 2008, and not with the V6 under the hood. The second-generation Skoda looked as close to what Skoda stood for and came bearing a 3.6-liter V6.
It also came mated to a dual-clutch transmission which was a hint to the kind of power it could make. Rated at about 240 horses, this avuncular sedan managed to hit 62 mph in 6.4 seconds, rather fast for a car that looked like the slowest thing on the road.
6 1990 Mercedes-Benz 500E
It was 1990 and AMG hadn’t started hammering out performance-oriented Mercs yet, if you’d excuse the pun. To shake Porsche out of its ultimate-sports-car reverie, Mercedes-Benz made the 500E, which looked like just any other barge-like E-class on the road.
Only, they stuck in a 5.0-liter V8 under the hood and made this go all the way up to 170mph, jetting 315 horses and 354 ft-lb torque. The car looked elegant and stately and it was only when you gassed the pedal you realize this one was actually a hellion.
5 1995 Volvo 850 T-5R and 850 R
How fast do you expect a station wagon to go, even if it does come from Volvo? If you quoted double digits, you’d be dead wrong and Volvo proved this way back in 1995 when they made special performance editions of the Volvo 850 and called them the 850 T-5R and in 1996, the 850 R.
For the 850 T-5R, the top speed was 152 mph and it hit 62 mph in 6.9 seconds with manual transmission. The 850R ran 0-60 mph in 6.7 seconds, but you would not ever think it possible if you looked at the cars.
4 1990 Lotus Carlton
So once Lotus made a sedan. Rather, they took an Opel Omega/Vauxhall Carlton and tinkered with it under the hood. And when we say tinkering, we mean they took the straight-six engine and tore it apart. Then, they rebuilt it with all things naughty and nice and added twin-turbochargers.
The result was an unbridled 377 horses that catapulted the Lotus Carlton to top speeds of almost 180 mph and made it one of the best things to have landed in the hands of any diamond thief of repute.
3 2005 BMW 330d
In the 2000s, before the emission scandals hit VW and its subsidiaries, diesel cars were not associated with speed. But the E90-generation BMW 330D was adopted by law enforcement pretty quickly because it looks more like a 316i and people expected it to be as doddering as well.
Only, this hit 62 mph in 5.9 seconds and made for a fairly quick ride, deceiving everyone with its looks and that diesel engine under the hood. Of course, today, diesel cars are almost as fast as the petrol variants.
2 2009 SEAT Exeo
The SEAT Exeo is just about as anonymous in name as it is in looks, and was basically rebadged, uglified version of the Audi A4 but came bearing a 2.0-liter TSI engine that made some 185 horses and could be further configured with a beefier suspension.
A 0-60 mph sprint happened in 7.3 seconds with decent handling and ride quality, although honestly, the car looked far too boring to be worthy of a second look. But that’s why one cannot judge a book by its cover.
1 1997 Audi A6 2.7T
Much later than this miracle, came the Audi RS6, the one that carried the Lamborghini Gallardo engine. But for this generation, Audi took a 2.7-liter twin-turbocharged V6 from the S4 and shoved it inside the Audi A6, making it jet 250 horses and 258 ft-lb of torque.
For a car that looked at home parked outside banks and seven-course-serving restaurants, the Audi A6 2.7T could hit 62 mph in less than seven seconds making it yet another benchmark in the stellar land of sleeper and Q cars.
Sources: CarandDriver, TopSpeed