The factors :

BHP. Torque. Weight. Gearbox type. Drive system (FWD, RWD, AWD)

A far better guide to real-world drivability is the 30-50 and 50-70 acceleration times, if available.

Try an advanced driving course.

If you read the written part of car reviews it often has a comment on how fast the car accelerates in the real world.

The only real way to tell is to test drive the car though. Two cars which look similar on paper can be very different on the road.

Personally, I'm not keen on the smaller VTEC type engines which really need to be revved hard to get anything out of them, particularly when it has been put with high gearing for economy. My view is that if a car won't give most of its potential acceleration when you put your foot on the floor in third at about 30mph, it will be frustrating to use in real life.

Watch out for cars at the other end of the spectrum too. Some diesels can feel quite fast in normal use, but when you shift down a couple of gears they just make more noise with little appreciable extra power. It doesn't seem to depend on engine size either, though this is one feature which the standard 0-60 time does measure quite well.

As others have said, in-gear acceleration (30-50 in 3rd gear, 40-60 or 50-70 in 4th) is a much more important gauge of how a car performs in the real world on the road. It shows how the car picks up and goes, for example when you are overtaking.

The engine's torque output, gearing and weight are factors but as mentioned, it also includes less tangible factors such as throttle response (which is by no means identical from car to car) and turbo lag.

For me, if a car can do 40-60 in 4th gear in 5 seconds or less, it's a good benchmark for swift, safe acceleration for overtaking.