Built For Speed

Today is a Sunday celebration of the need, the need for speed. I was reading my new copy of Motor Trend Classics that featured the sheer, over the top exuberance of the sixties muscle-cars, when something hit me. These cars, with their rumbling big block V-8's and straight pipe exhausts, were all about bluster, 'sturm und drang', burning rubber and attracting chicks. But with 0-60 times of around 7.5 to 8 seconds (about as quick as my daughter's Honda Element), they really weren't all that quick. Back in the days when 'drivers were fat and tires were skinny', they simply couldn't put all that rumble to the road. Only the fastest Ferrari's, Cobra's and Italian Jobs could get to 60 in under six seconds. Today this seems almost quaint. Today, my Honda S2000, with it's 2,157 naturally aspirated cc's can reach sixty in about five seconds with an electronically limited top speed of 155mph and get 25 mpg all the while. The fastest of the cars shown today (Nissan GTR) can reach sixty in 3.5 eyeball popping seconds and lap some of the fastest race cars of that beloved era. As Einstein once said, "It's all relative". Today's Mustang GT 5.0 can run rings around the fastest GT-350 track car of its day. These ARE the good old days....