[mr0077]

Okay, just playing devil's advocate with Johnny's quote, and Bob's and Craig's responses...If the guy with the same torque at 2000 rpm geared his car appropriately, as Craig suggested the guy making same peak torque at 4000 would do, wouldn't they both accelerate at the same rate (if the quote is right)? And wouldn't the F1 car also accelerate the same as the two other motors if they all had the same optimum gearing and the same torque-to-weight ratio? Hmmm, I'm getting more confused...

And to muddle things up even more, consider this:
Power to weight is usually expressed (backwards, I might add) as weight/horsepower=lbs./HP. So if you want to consider the power to torque ratio, it would be weight /lbs=lb-ft/lb. Okay, so pound-feet divided by pounds equals feet, right? So, my car weighs 2500 lbs, has 500 ft-lbs of torque, so it has a torque to weight ratio of 2500 lb/500lb-ft="5/feet" (or maybe feet/0.2, whichever way you wanna look at it)...how 'bout that?

So you'd say a car with "5 per foot" has a better torque to weight ratio (backwards again) than a car with "6 per foot", right?