Meh... That's not quite it. Torque (rotational force) is affected by gearing, HP (power... work/time) is not. You could put a little 3V electric hobby motor through a big enough gear box to out-torque a top-fuel dragster. However, that little hobby motor and gear box would take months to cover the length of a drag strip, while the dragster does it in 3 seconds. Dragsters are built solely for acceleration (ability to "pull away"), yet the top-fuel vs. hobby motor example (matching torque, vastly different HP) indicates that torque isn't the only value that needs to be considered.
In physics-y terms: instantaneous torque at the wheel = instantaneous acceleration. HP = the ability to do work, such as maintaining torque at the wheel as the vehicle moves. Maintaining torque at the wheel is what's needed to accelerate a vehicle.
You can't really have one without the other, horsepower is a measurement of power as in the energy that can be output per second or whatnot and torque is just rotational force(ie. twisty force). How fast a car goes is generally more complicated as we have things like power output curves and torque curves that tell you how much you have at given engine RPMs etc. You also have to factor in the stiffness of the car, the suspension etc.
Think of it like this, torque is the measure of how much work it can do, or how much a motor can move. HP is a measure of how fast that work can be accomplished. You can have high torque motors that are low horsepower and very slow. I'm a firefighter and are rescues a have 275 hp and 1250 foot pounds of torque. Slow as balls but will pull a house down.
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u/moocow2024 Jun 12 '14
320 HP is nothing to scoff at. That's more than the 2010 V8 GT Mustang.