You should try a powerful small compact car on small country roads, where it is impossible to engage the two last gears, you will forget forever the powerful cars in straight line.
The "small country roads" here are poorly maintained with far too many pot holes to do mush spirited driving.
I did get a very memorable ride here maybe 10 years ago in a Cooper S Mini driven by a police officer who knows the roads and how to fly on them.
As for my own driving experience, when I was younger and still "invincible," 154 MPH in a FWD Dodge Charger 2.2 with a big turbo and a lot of boost was my fastest run, all in a 5 or 6 mile long straight line.
Don't think I would do either any more.
I hit 230 km/h once before I had to leave the highway... It was still pulling, too. Nowadays, I tend to keep it under 50 km/h over the limit since they call that "stunt driving" and impound your car for 7 days if you're caught in Ontario.
When I think "small country roads" I think crushed limestone road surface and lots of paint chips lol
When I think "small country roads" I think crushed limestone road surface and lots of paint chips lol
There used to be, maybe still is, a lot of sport bike motorcycle activity in the mountains around the Silicon Valley area in California. At the time I was there most of the participants were employed in professional jobs: engineers, lawyers, scientists, etc. Lots of winding roads up in the hills, over Mt. Hamilton, etc. Occasional day trips down the interior of Central California saw some high speeds down long stretches of nearly vacant 2-lane highway, 150mph and more on some days.
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In the mountains of the Carolinas they have names for stretch’s of road that make for interesting rides and a high chance of getting scraped off the pavement. ‘Tail of the dragon’ is a very popular one, our farm was on the one called ‘the rattler’ ......it was alway fun to sit on the porch and watch the different car clubs motor by.
155 mph in a 944 Turbo for me, way back when. My brother was hollering "shift, shift!" because it was into the rev limiter. His eyes got pretty big when I said "I don't have another gear!"
Glad you made it through that one!
Your governement can't maintain the gigantic road gird of you gigantic country and this is not the case of mine, the small roads are pretty clean. A well dyno tuned yougntimer car (1980) can output 200HP on the front weels of a 900Kg small car without any ESP or traction control, the throttle have the ability to make the tyres sing at any moment and a slight of excess takes you instantly out of the track in the front direction (FWD).
Have you experienced any crash with your dragsters ? ?
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Here's a "country road" about 40 minutes from downtown Toronto...
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I grew up in a semi-rural area where smaller cars ruled the roads most of the time, lots of banked corners. The police cars were typically full-sized American sedans with large V8s, even mum's VW squareback was a formidable challenge...
I used to race my small FWD Charger in autocross, AKA parking lot grand prix. On a small track I could run the entire course in 2nd gear on a 5 speed manual.
On the drag strip, I used 4 gears and often touched the rev limiter in 4th as I went through the lights at the end (carefully chosen tire size). The 7200 RPM limiter was what kept me from going any faster in 5th, and the only reason I knew the exact top speed, as the 1982 vintage speedometer only went to 85 MPH.
Here we are in the Ohio River valley about a mile from the river, in serious hill country. The roads are poorly maintained, often 60+ years old and designed for 20,000 pounds max. Today drill rigs and other fracking supplies at or above max legal GVW are carted up the hillsides tearing up the roads, or worse. Crashes are commonplace. Last year we had a dump truck on its side in a tree. Our road does not have guard rails in places where 100 to 500 foot drops are often 5 feet from the edge of the road, and chunks of pavement have slipped away. About 50% of the vehicles here are full size pickup trucks, and most of them are the big ones.
Google doesn't have images of our road, but here is a nice hairpin on the next road east of here. At least once a week a semi driver will ignore all the signs and get stuck, or jackknife trying to make this turn....it is a wild ride in a Mini though.
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I recently rented a 2018 Ford Fiesta, completely stock and not the ST performance car or one the newer models that are now sold in other countries.
My brother lives up a very twisty mountain road, but well paved, and on many corners one can look across to the roadbefore a turn to see if traffic is coming. That car was a blast! Mostly because it was narrow enough to really use the width of the road. It handles great, and that’s with small all-weather tires. The suspension is very well tuned.
If I still lived in the US , and wanted a second car I’d get the ST performance model which has 200hp. Not outrageous power but plenty to really have fun. And the new price for that model is/was about 20k, so not a huge investment. 2019 was the last year they were imported but there are a few new ones around and a bunch of used ones...
Of course the Focus RS and ST are the real terrors with I think almost 400hp, and the speed parts to go with it, but the over 40k price takes a bit of the fun out of it.
My brother lives up a very twisty mountain road, but well paved, and on many corners one can look across to the roadbefore a turn to see if traffic is coming. That car was a blast! Mostly because it was narrow enough to really use the width of the road. It handles great, and that’s with small all-weather tires. The suspension is very well tuned.
If I still lived in the US , and wanted a second car I’d get the ST performance model which has 200hp. Not outrageous power but plenty to really have fun. And the new price for that model is/was about 20k, so not a huge investment. 2019 was the last year they were imported but there are a few new ones around and a bunch of used ones...
Of course the Focus RS and ST are the real terrors with I think almost 400hp, and the speed parts to go with it, but the over 40k price takes a bit of the fun out of it.
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In my country, the cops have slowish cars and the can't chase you efficiently in our extremely dense road net but they are patient and intelligent and they know where you live.
Are you a pilot ? it would be sad to ride poorly mainained roads, the speed number is not directly related to the pleasure... what about beautiful landscapes, nice and twisty grippy roads and extreme danger on the two sides 😀
IMHO the oldtimers gives much more sensations, modern car are totally aseptized and ultra easy to drive despite their impressive numbers because a high torque 200HP+ FWD car is impossible to control on old roads with normal tyres and without the TCS.
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Well “impossible” is a rather dramatic statement and in one sentence you say modern cars are “ultra easy” to drive these days even with their impressive numbers and then say they are “impossible to control” with 200hp. These day even a small car is heavier than you might think as they are more rigid, have the side guard beams, better bumpers, and other safety equipment, ( which is a good idea IMHO when driving on the twisty mountain roads we”re discussing) so IMHO 200 hp isn’t excessive considering that weight. And yeah, that model comes with wider wheels and better tires. Now One of those rally type Focus cars I mentioned are wider and have over 350 hp and that would be too much for me!
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The focus ST was a technical challenge because the front wheels are physically unable to transfer so much energy to the road and therfore they must design a TCS that reduce the torque by 20% during the acceleration phase.
IRL, without the ford engineers traction management system, the car will be a killing machine.
IRL, without the ford engineers traction management system, the car will be a killing machine.
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But it won’t thanks to those wonderful engineers! And please note I was saying I wanted a FIESTA ST with 200hp not a FOCUS ST or RS. And the RS is all-wheel drive I believe, and is also the one with the highest horsepower I believe.
I like old and simple cars also and as I mentioned I learned to drive in a 1967 Porsche 911 with only 120-130hp, but it weighed 1000kilos which is probably 300 kilos less than that tiny Modern Fiesta. Lift the throttle in that Porsche at the wrong time and it could be a killing machine! My dream car is a Lotus super seven kit car- very light amd simple, but my wife won’t let me...
I like old and simple cars also and as I mentioned I learned to drive in a 1967 Porsche 911 with only 120-130hp, but it weighed 1000kilos which is probably 300 kilos less than that tiny Modern Fiesta. Lift the throttle in that Porsche at the wrong time and it could be a killing machine! My dream car is a Lotus super seven kit car- very light amd simple, but my wife won’t let me...
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Put the 230CV of a Ducati panigale on a 1000Kg car and the acceleration will be totally anemic and you won't be able to spin your tires.
Numbers mean nothing.
No, retired electrical engineer. I spent most of my career sitting at a computer screen. I use the term "flying" when in or on anything moving faster than 100 MPH.
It started when a coworker was arrested and jailed for "unlawful FLIGHT to avoid prosecution" for finding the upper limits of his new crotch rocket motorcycle on a public road. It seems that the Broward Sheriff's Office helicopter spotted him, but "could not keep up with him." He kept going, got off the freeway and stopped for gas, having no idea the cops had seen him. By this time the cops in the helicopter had directed the cops on the ground to the gas station where he was arrested. None of the cops had any way to measure his speed, but it was "obviously unlawful" hence the "unlawful flight" charge, which he beat in court since he surrendered peacefully at the gas station. He claimed a speed in the 170+ range (speed limit, 65), which nobody dared to challenge.
Both of the high powered FWD cars came to an end in a crash. Neither were "dragsters" as handling was the prime consideration at build time. Both were also my daily drivers, so well behaved street manners were a necessity. I did have some older RWD cars (68 Camaro, 73 Challenger) for straight line duty.
I lived in South Florida for the first 62 years of my life where all of the roads are flat, as is the entire southern half of the state. Most are also straight, or have long lengths of straight stretches without side streets where someone can pull out in front of you when you are "testing."
The first Charger started out as a mundane FWD "performance car" with 82 HP. Fortunately it allowed me to learn the proper methods of driving a FWD car as loss of a single front wheel traction tends to yank the steering wheel out of your hand, and you must understand the meaning of "trailing throttle understeer." Power and handling upgrades came in stages that tended to coincide with my ability to drive them. It peaked at about 220 HP in a 2200 pound (1000 Kg) car.
I had three sets of wheels / tires for that car. Top speed and drag racing required a set of low profile 14 inch wheels and an odd size tire only made by Pirelli that was an optional size for the VW Scirocco. They allowed me to hit the rev limiter in 4th at about 110 MPH right at the end of the dragstrip, and pull to the limiter in 5th. I had a set of 15 inch Yokohama A008R racing tires for the autocross. Their soft compound rubber would last a couple months on the road, so were only used for racing. Then there was the 15 inch ordinary set for typical wet road Florida road driving. The car could not "climb the torque curve" with them, thus was limited to about 130 MPH in 4th.
That car came to an end when an elderly driver in a 70's Cadillac made a right turn out of the center lane when I was in the right lane. I managed to avoid the Cadillac, but hopped a curb in the process. The car seemed undamaged, but didn't handle right after the incident, and the clutch pedal moved up an down by itself at will.
Teardown revealed that all of the body welds between the front subframe and the floor pan had been torn loose on the left side. Lots of sheet metal screws and a few bolts got the car drivable, but it would never withstand the rigors of anything more than a mundane drive to work.
I found a neglected 85 Charger with a good body for cheap, and swapped over all of the good stuff to it. It was not as aerodynamic as the 82 version and could not pull to the rev limiter in 5th gear with any tires.
Newer faster cars like the MR2, Miata, 3rd Gen RX7, and the Cooper S Mini began to dominate autocross, and my car was not stock (engine transplant) so it had to run in a "modified" class where it was not competitive. The drag strip had closed down. The usual, work, family, life functions brought me to the track less and less.
A few years later a malfunctioning traffic light, a 70's Chevy Impala (large and heavy) moving 50 MPH, in a blind intersection scattered my car all over the road, and I wound up driving a very cheap, very used 1985 4 cylinder minivan.
The bad roads here are not conducive to "spirited driving." I'm now 67 years old, and find myself usually going the speed limit in.....a minivan I bought last year (hey it was cheap.)
And what do you think of the lastest generation of cars, those who have a SOC with google on a big tactile screen inside, have you tested them ?