06-07-2022, 02:59 PM
(06-07-2022, 01:59 PM)Tony Griffiths Wrote: Wind resistance makes a huge difference. On a chummy, open the top half of the screen - it's worth about 4 m.p.h. Take the screen off and it seems to add about 7 m.p.h. In the late 1960s, late at night in PL3002, I drafted a friend's mini van on a flat section of road and, with its well-run-in but standard engine, it clocked 75 m.ph. on the van's speedo - so, say 69 m.p.h.? On the same night, I ran the car for several miles flat out with the ignition well retarded. Stopped, opened the bonnet and the exhaust manifold was glowing red hot. Oh, how hard we used our 7s then.
It's difficult to appreciate how our travelling has changed, even over the last few years. In the mid-1970s I entered a VSCC rally based in the New Forest. In order to make the 200-mile journey there more palatable for my wife I created a chart plotting various locations and target times. Unfortunately that document seems to have failed to survive our last house move, but I recall looking at in around the year 2000 and wondering how on earth we managed to average over 40mph in a standard RK saloon for the whole journey (no motorways, or town bypasses, and including all feeding and watering stops). Just a month ago I drove down to Moreton in my modern for a meeting regarding the forthcoming Centenary event, and driving flat out, failed to achieve a 30mph average over the same roads.