Rational Car Design

These days, Daimler-Chrysler offers cars with engine options ranging from a
Straight-Four to a Vee-Ten. They tell you this or that engine is rated for
xyz horsepower, but that tells you absolutely nothing about the car's
performance. As you know, top speed and acceleration isn't even advertised
anymore and even it it was, its all meaningless:

All parameters must be rated with a full fuel tank and full passenger and
baggage load.
Car should be capable of 75 mph (Interstate speed limit) up 6% (Interstate
grade limit) at 7500 feet elevation (Interstate max elevation) on a
standard day (temp/pressure). Brakes should be capable of making at least
one full stop from 75 mph to zero, at full load, at 0.75 g. A salom test
needs to be designed to demonstrate steering performance to the limits of
road adhesion and of course, the vehicle must not roll (no outrigger
allowed for the test and the company CEO must ride as a passenger to
observe first hand).

That's it! A car that can do this will accelerate adequately, have
adequate top speed, brakes, steering, etc. Anything less is a dog and
anything more is wasteful.

To make this point stronger, I once drove a '74 Bel-Aire with a 327 V-8 and
Turboglide up the Grapevine at Tehachipi (US-99) on a warm evening, loaded
with three adults and baggage and 3/4 tank. It would not exceed 55 mph!
What a dog. If it makes you feel any better, the '50s cars were dogs too;
they went faster for a short while untile their valves warped, some of them
at least, but they wouldn't stop...something called heat glazing and brake
fade; if they got wet, say your prayers.

You skeptics will lay praise upon your new cars as being so much better
than earlier models you drove, but only because you don't have anything
decent to compare to. Your cars of old were junk with a capital J; your
new models are junk with a lower-case j.

 

Certainly are in Europe and most other places. Are we having a touch of
talking through our left nostril?

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling
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