7 Cars That Could Win a Drag Race Against Gravity

Thanks to gravity, an object in free fall accelerates at a rate of 32.2 feet per second squared. So an item dropped from the top of the Empire State Building will accelerate to about 22 mph in one second and continue gaining speed until it reaches terminal velocity—when the resistance from aerodynamic drag counteracts the gravitational effect. Recently, however, we’ve driven cars that feel so quick, we began to wonder if they could accelerate on flat ground quicker than if they’d been dropped from an airplane. Let’s take a look at which cars can beat gravity, and a few that come pretty darn close (and perhaps could win on their best day). Unless we note otherwise, the times are tested figures from established outlets, and the figures are accurate at the time of posting.

By Ben Wojdyla