Top 5 performance cars we tested in 2022

Performance cars of today are breathtakingly fast, deceptively agile and in most cases, luxurious, too. There’s everything for everyone in all shapes and sizes so if your dream is to cruise down a twisty mountain pass or go all out around a race track, there is a two-seater sports car, a hot hatch, a practical family sedan or even a hunkered down crossover/EV capable of turning it into a reality. Here at CarWale we were rather lucky throughout 2022, driving all sorts of fast cars and here’s our pick of some of the best that money can buy.

Mercedes-Benz EQS AMG

This is one 700-horsepower AMG that can be your daily driver. Beats buying any other AMG performance sedan with its blistering acceleration - which by the way you can never get used to. It’s comical. Despite that, the EQS AMG has nimble manners, a massive battery, supercar-shaming performance, and a familiar Mercedes' character, the EQS AMG duly sits at the apex of the EV ecosystem pyramid. It’s the modern-day alternative to the maniacal S63 AMG with a fire-breathing twin-turbo V12. Yet it can leave the S63 in its wake without burning a single drop of fossil fuel. It truly proves we are living in strange times.

Mini Cooper S JCW

The Mini Cooper have always been life sized Go-Karts and the JCW is the most playful Mini one can buy. It has plenty to like including special looks and crazy performance. While 230bhp and 320Nm might not sound like a lot, but in a car just as large as the Maruti Swift, it packs a massive punch. The JCW is best enjoyed in Sports mode, where the throttle response is immediate and in this mode, it can go from nothing to 100kmph in a claimed 6.1 seconds flat. Also the exhaust starts spitting out an aural note that will delight most enthusiasts. It also corners flat which makes you want to push harder in the next corner till you experience the obvious understeer. With its compact dimensions, its squat stance and oodles of power, the Mini Cooper S JCW is like a happy puppy that just wants to chase corners all day long.

Mercedes-Benz GLA 35 AMG

The Mercedes-Benz GLA35 AMG doesn’t make sense, and yet it does. It’s based on a very practical GLA yet makes more than 300 horsepower. But it’s the only performance-oriented premium car that you could viably buy in that price segment. The absence of RSQ3, and the fact that the Mini Cooper is just as useful as a chocolate teapot, make the GLA35 look not so bad a choice either. It sits four in comfort, has top-of-the-line features and that AMG exhaust tips sound gloriously raucous when given some beans. Its engine might not be a proper hand-built AMG one, but the character of the 302bhp turbocharged four-cylinder is plain mental. And it’s assembled right here in India as well, not Affalterbach.

Audi e-tron GT

It's got GT in its name which stands for Grand Touring. And once you are behind the wheel of the Audi E-Tron GT, it’s electric nature becomes a secondary character. Behind the wheel, it becomes exactly what its name suggests – a grand touring machine. There might be 523 horsepower and 630Nm on tap that’s capable of 0-100kmph in 4.1 seconds. And the two electric motors on both axles are fed through a 93kWh battery pack offering a range of more than 400 kilometres. But numbers aside, the E-Tron GT has a comfortable ride, ease of power delivery, friendly controls and massive range. This makes it a pretty handy tool for a trans-European escapade. While it can courteously rearrange your internals in outright acceleration (while being eerily silent mind you), it can still be a comfortable city slicker for your everyday needs.

Mercedes-Benz E53 AMG

Mercedes-Benz AMG is brilliant at doing the Eddie Brock-into-Venom trick, turning its humdrum models into fire breathing, tire smoking V8 monsters. The E53 is neither. It’s far less vicious, easier on the eye and a lot more manageable – its Peter Parker doubled up as Spiderman. It’s everything we want from an AMG; it’s fast, poised, comfortable and best of all, immune to speed bumps (with some care, of course). The E53 AMG’s 3-litre motor is quite special even though it’s not a proper AMG engine like the monstrous 4-litre twin-turbo V8 you get in the E63 S. Firstly, this engine has a straight-six cylinder configuration and secondly its supplemented by a twin-scroll turbo, an electric motor and a compressor. Basically there’s an integrated starter motor powered by a 48-volt electrical system that makes 21 additional horsepower and more importantly, 250Nm of torque bringing the total output to 429bhp and 520Nm.

Pictures by Kapil Angane and Kaustubh Gandhi