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We get a lot of magazines at our house and it does seem that most of them have cars on the cover. There are a couple with flower pots and placemats on some but they don't arrive nearly as often as the hard core stuff. For years I always went first to the road tests of new cars to see what was new and shiny and how fast it would go. As time went on it became clear that it was never going to be necessary for me to make that tough decision between a Ferrari and a Lamborghini based upon their 0-60 times, engine displacement or curb weight. Not that I didn't need to keep all those numbers filed but it was unlikely that they would ever be used for anything more serious that a Cliff Clavin type bar bet. As I started to spend more time actually working on cars the technical articles took on a new significance. The club magazines were of most interest as there were no questions about a timing chain on a water cooled V8 taking up space in a Porsche Panorama back in the '70's. That would come later, who would've ever thought back then? Oh, well. Pictures showing things like side exhaust on a Volvo 142 were of great interest and to this day there is still a copy of an "Inch Pincher" VW engine in the bottom drawer of my tool box that was in a 1959 Sports Cars Illustrated. I guess that I always figured I'd get around to that project but never did. Somehow raising the 36 hp all the way up to 49 hp on an old Beetle doesn't seem all that important. But it did at the time. I still read the road tests on cars that I will never own that will go speeds that I will never travel. Case in point the new Porsche Cayman. It seems like a nice car . Enough early lines from the Boxster to retain that unmistakable Porsche silhouette. Nice touch with the 911 engine amidships just like the 550 Spyder over fifty years ago. Maybe the PR company can wake up that old guy again so we can have another look at what a lightweight, nimble sports car used to look like in a future TV ad. I guess the thing that I find troublesome is on the specification page. Under top speed it says that this car can travel up to 171 mph. Now just to be sure that we are on the politically correct page I'm sure that it also said something about a professional driver on a closed course but even with my glasses on I couldn't find it. But lets think about that for a minute. I guess that I stopped reading those road tests back when cars right off the showroom floor started going over 125 mph. When asked we always said that our 356's could only do 100 mph but it would get there pretty quick. Actually it really wasn't that quick but 100 mph always sounded like a big number, triple digits and all. Besides that speed in a Porsche was a lot different than that speed in your mother's Pontiac. You could turn and stop, things that the Pontiac couldn't think about trying at 100 mph. Somewhere in the late '70's when the 930 Turbo was released I remember seeing 150 mph written somewhere but that really didn't concern me because I knew that there were only going to be a few built and I would probably seldom see one. But the Cayman is going to be a mass produced car as common in a few years as the Boxsters are today. And that means that hundreds of owners can get up in the morning, get in the car, turn the key and drive to work at speeds that cars can't achieve driving off a cliff. I believe in freedom, apple pie and puppy dogs but I don't see the need for a street car with a 171 mph speed capability. I know that the new Ford GT will top 205 mph but somehow the $150k pricetag and limited production will probability keep them out of the hands of recent high school graduates on a Saturday night date. We could certainly use some sort of speed limiter but I believe that a better idea would be to regear it to top out at 125 - 130mph. Imagine how much faster it could get there. Years ago on the International Rally circuit there was a class called Group B. The cars had no limitation on horsepower , suspension or for that matter, drivetrain layout. In a few short years the cars developed to small lightweight bodies with huge horsepower, some approaching 1000 hp. They were nicknamed the "Killerbees" because
of the noise they generated as the roared through the rally roads of Europe.
It was said that when they crashed, and they did with alarming regularity,
it looked like a plane crash. Nothing left but pieces of plastic and aluminum
in a crater in the dirt.The cars were eventually outlawed and the class
eliminated because of the death and destruction they caused.
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