Not exactly, xpensive. You have "secondary" effects, and how you handle those secondary (or tertiary) deviations from theory is what distinguishes a great engineer (like us) from lousy wannabes (like other engineers that doesn't belong to this forum).
As Scotracers said, well, yes, the torque at the wheels is different if the wheels have different radii, but the HP is the same. To repeat what has already been said many times, HP is the integral of torque respect of angular velocity (RPM).
This thread is exactly like asking: what is more important, force, mass or acceleration. Duh.
However, to answer xpensive "neutrality",
engines with larger torque and less RPM (but with the same HP as another engine) are (usually) heavier, aren't they? So, from immemorial times, the race is for RPM.
For example, you could use larger tires, sure. You would have more torque at the wheels (and less RPM, for the same HP). But
then you will have more weight on the car and a larger unsuspended mass: a no-no, definitely.
So, my conclusion:
an ideal car would have wheels of zero radius with zero mass and infinite RPM (which would give you infinite HP).
I wonder why they haven't invented those wheels already. Probably the gearbox would be a nightmare to design, if I follow correctly Riffraff ideas.
I haven't figured out yet what would happen with infinite RPM and zero torque, btw, but any person in this forum who has driven a Fiat 600 knows what I mean.
In this particular car (I mean, in the Topolino) RPM are almost infinite, or at least the car engine sounds like it has infinite RPM when you floor it, but the torque is almost zero. Maybe that's the reason why Fiat bought Ferrari: to be able to race AND, at the same time, avoid infinitely complex questions, like the ones posed by the little Topolino.
Actually, when you drive a Fiat 600, sometimes you wonder if you have pressed the brake instead of the gas pedal... sometimes the car brakes when you accelerate.
On the other hand, as I already said, we have cars like the Hummer. This car (
this is a military top secret, don't tell anybody outside the Internets, please) has infinite torque, it can climb vertical walls with zero friction. I think it doesn't need a clutch: you simply accelerate. Why would you need a clutch with infinite torque? It's a waste.
On the other hand, Hummer's engine max RPM (in the american tradition) are almost zero, so the end result is zero HP. That's the reason why people race in Topolinos, but I haven't heard of a Hummer race yet.
So, in the end, at the "quaternary effects" level,
it's the RPM, stupid.
End of the thread, I hope (yeah, sure).
I wonder what that could have turned out like with another 40 years of development? Scaled up to F1-size, that could have been something ridiculously powerful. 