I know the 200hp number seems low and I too thought the same thing,that for a sports car it was vastly underpowered. But you have to drive this thing to "feel" how fast it is. Its a small car, smaller than I thought until I saw it in person and I'm not a big fan of high revving,low torque engines but man is that engine sweet. Aside from a few 140 mph blasts in my srt6 I don't really drive flat out that fast very often,I'm more of a twisty back road guy.That's why I have to take my car on that same route to compare.Of course not having the close ratio manual its not going to be as fun but I'm curious to see how the handling of the xfire stacks up.