The lightest car in a Carwow drag race, the Morgan Supersport 400, won every run against three rivals that all share BMW's 3.0-litre inline-six B58 engine. The Morgan weighs 1,170 kg, or 2,579 lb, and recorded a quarter-mile time of 11.8 seconds, matching that figure in both standing and rolling starts. The result shows how much weight and drivetrain layout can matter when the engine is the same.
The Morgan produces 402 hp and 500 Nm of torque, sends power to the rear wheels and uses a ZF eight-speed automatic gearbox. Its UK price is about £138,883, which places it far above the other entrants. Its power output is also a useful reference point, since the Morgan's advantage in this test came from its low mass rather than from having the highest output in the group.
The BMW M240i xDrive was the closest challenger, with a best quarter-mile time of 12.6 seconds, 0.8 seconds slower than the Morgan. It is rated at 386 hp and 540 Nm and comes with all-wheel drive as standard. Weighing 1,690 kg, or 3,726 lb, it carries roughly 520 kg more than the Morgan. Its UK price is around £50,000. The notes suggest that the xDrive system's launch traction probably explains why the M240i finished narrowly ahead of the Toyota Supra, despite the Supra's rear-wheel drive setup and lighter weight.
The Toyota GR Supra recorded a best quarter-mile time of 12.7 seconds. It produces 335 hp, weighs 1,495 kg and is rear-wheel drive. The car tested was a milder European tune, and the notes indicate that the US-spec version would likely be quicker. That point is an uncertainty rather than a confirmed result, because the US-spec Supra's output was not tested in this comparison. The Supra's position shows that the lighter weight of a car does not automatically guarantee a faster run without traction advantages.
The updated B58 engine gained 18 PS and 30 lb-ft of torque through a 48-volt mild-hybrid system, and that upgrade is part of why the engine is still relevant in this comparison. All four vehicles used the same basic engine family, so the drag race isolates the effects of mass, gearing and drivetrain layout rather than displacement or cylinder count.
The slowest entrant was the tuned Ineos Grenadier. It had been raised to 454 hp and 650 Nm, but its weight of 2,480 kg, or almost twice the Morgan's, held it back. Its best quarter-mile time was 14.3 seconds, 2.5 seconds behind the Morgan. For context, the standard gasoline Grenadier produces 282 hp and reaches 62 mph in 8.6 seconds, so the tuned version's extra power was not enough to close the gap created by its size.
Taken together, the results make the Morgan's win straightforward to read: with a shared engine family and a clear weight difference, the lightest car led every run. The margins between the M240i and the Supra were small, and the notes flag traction and US-spec output as open questions rather than settled facts. The Morgan's victory, by contrast, held across every run in the test.