While I wait for my legal copy of the game to come in the mail so I can start speedrunning v1.2, I've made this vid to show you how well the mid game level cars do against each other.

Sound got messed up during youtube's upload so that sucks but oh well. I have terrible upload speed so I can't be bothered to upload a different version. I will try to make another video once I get my current save file past blacklist #4 or 3 so that I can test out some of the other cars versus the ones I already tested. I was watching kurus any% run and he mentioned how he'd want to know if the porsche 911 or DB9 are any faster than the elise, and while he may or may not have figured that out already, I want to make another video showcasing just that along with some of the other later cars.

All of the cars I've tested will have their track times recorded in the youtube desc.

1. Don't use nitrous. You never hold it for the same time, thus it can affect the result. It won't give you the actual lap times you'll get during the run, but it should be more accurate, unless the nitrous has different power for each car.

2. I've noticed you don't drive exactly same with each car. This can affect the result (even crashing into a sign can change the lap time significantly). Especially the lap with Elise has several small bumps.

3. I don't know how many laps of this track you did, but as you get more used to it, you generally get faster, so it might be a good idea to redo some of the early laps.

1. Used nos because I'm lazy. I want to find a different track when I do the times for the late game cars since I know v1.2 has those random objects in the alleyway and just random bushes on dirt roads, so on my next vid I'll do no nos different track now that I think about it since I'll be speedrunning on 1.2. Without nos the times become the same but plus 4ish seconds. Top 4 cars do high 1:28/low-mid 1:29 on perfect runs instead of low-mid 1:25.
2. Even if you do hit a sign you might lose 1/10th up to 1/3 of a second with my experience so I didn't rerun the track if I had a really good time for the best cars. For the Cayman I had a unrecorded run of 1:25.0, and the Elise can DEFINITELY do under 1:25, but I ran it so much that I didn't want to keep going. Also yes since the Elise is much lighter than the other cars it took those bumps pretty hard.
3. Like I said I ran this track many times, I've gotten use to how most of these cars handle otherwise I'd just mess up the two turns after the highway. When I started I would hit the walls constantly but I got use to exactly how much pressure I need to put on my analog sticks to make those two turns after the highway part without crashing into either one of the walls.

for reference the times without nos are

Elise 1:28.8 - could do better Cayman 1:28.9 - Near perfect run, I could maybe get it down to 1:28.8 Stilo - 1:29.61 - Perfect run, the fiat is a very viable early game car. Takes turns amazingly. Golf - 1:29.7 - I hit the wall slightly after highway, lost anywhere from .2-.5 of a second. Getting this time even after hitting a wall is impressive. Cobalt - 1:29.9 - I ran nearly a perfect run (lost maybe .1 of a second total, hit a sign) to get this time so the cobalt is extremely nos dependant to get times closer to the top 3. The stilo is actually faster than the cobalt if both cars don't use nos just because the stilo has better handling than cobalt. But if both cars can use nos, they're pretty much the same. I'm guessing cobalt has better acceleration so that's why it might have done a better run with nos. Pontiac - 1:35.10 - just to see how it'd do I ran it multiple times and fastest time I can get is a low 1:35, CLK would do even worse.

The same top 5 appear relatively close to each other, while all of the other mid game cars lag behind. But yeah while I play the game I'm going to most likely do as many of the sprint races for each boss to better get an idea of which new track I'd like to do while upgrading the newer cars and seeing how they all do against eachother. I'm thinking of making a video with the top 2 mid game cars paired up with the top 2 late game cars in one vid. So Elise & Cayman plus whatever I find to be the two fastest mid-late game cars.

For any%, I can tell you that you just have to use Golf until defeating Kaze, then switch to Elise. There is no other possible choice to be optimal.

I'm making these vids to at most give a reference to how well the cars can do against each other. I'm sure there's people that ask which car actually is fastest compared to another car and that will be the point of my vid. I'm using the same track since it's the best sprint track other than 1 other in rockport, but there's one turn on that track that's too hard to consistently make, so diamond and union it is. With no nos runs the Elise is currently the fastest at 1:19.85 while the Gallardo is 2nd at 1:21.1. I didn't test the carrera gt and ford gt yet.

Why isn't golf into ming gallardo the best route to take? You wouldn't have to waste time buying and upgrading the elise, but doing that would rely on luck to get the gallardo I guess. Is the elise so good you'd always use the time to buy it and upgrade it? I'm assuming it's not amazing for pursuits, whereas gallardo isn't as light as a feather.

You don't lose much time buying it, because you buy it when you've finished the little circuit in rockport, in Kaze's requirements. 15-20 secs lost at most, easily gained back on track.

Ah gotcha. It seems that the carrera gt is the only other car that's quick enough to take over the elise but unless you have the same way to buy the carrera and only lose a couple seconds the elise would be the best car to get.

No it would be too long because the carrera would be at heat level 1. The Elise should be too slow as well but as the Heat is automaticly changed to 1 after Kaze's 4th race, it's definitely better to buy it.

So the only viable strat is golf -> end game or golf -> elise -> end game?

Finished testing the rest of the cars

The fastest is Golf -> Elise -> End