Sleeper (car)

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A sleeper (US English) or Q-car (British English) is a car that hides high performance beneath an unassuming exterior.

Some cars come like this from the factory to suit the tastes of those who want performance without drama, whether understatedness suits their chosen image or lifestyle, or simply because they do not wish to attract the attention of the police. Many high-performance sedans look hardly different from the lower-powered models in the range; for example, the Pontiac GTO, Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9, Chrysler 300C SRT8, Mercury Marauder, Volkswagen Passat W8, 1996 Chevrolet Impala SS, BMW M5, Dodge Charger SRT8, Ford Taurus SHO, and the Ford Mustang GT.

Owners may, in fact, reduce the evidence that their car is of high-performance by removing characteristic letterings and trimmings. Sleepers often contain stock body parts, a dull paint job, or stock or lookalike stock wheels.

Others deliberately create sleepers by hot-rodding a car's engine and drive axles and leaving the external appearance exactly the way it came from the factory. Sometimes hints of the car's true nature show if one looks and listens carefully: wider tires, a lower stance, or a different engine note.

Some simply like having performance without show, but a more predatory use of the sleeper is in street racing, where it is used to fool an opponent into under-estimating a car's performance for the purposes of "hustling". Some have even gone so far as to leave their cars' exteriors banged up and rusting, and sometimes even causing additional rusting with the use of battery acid. Often sleepers will be cheaper to insure compared to an equally fast sports car.

Sleeper (car)

See also