Did you really drive *that* quickly 'back in the day'?

[donkmeister]

Yes and no... If I saw someone driving like I did when I was 17 then I would think they were a knob. The speed was more inappropriate than high, and the risk threshold was higher too.

For instance I would often do more than 30 in built-up areas because that's what I'd seen my parents, friends and others doing. Then I had a think about what that said about me, and now I won't.

But the max speeds I achieved on NSL roads in my 45bhp Fiat then are the sort of speeds I would regard as simple pressing-on. I overtake more frequently than I did but if you put 17 year old me in my current fleet I'd spend as much time on the offside as I would on the nearside of the road.

[AC43]

Heaveho said:

When I got my Evo 8 in early 2004, I did 14000 miles in it that year. The service schedules are every 4.5k miles, meaning it had 3 services that year. I had to have all 4 tyres replaced at all 3 services.....

My first 200SX was a company car and I was getting through OEM rears so quickly that after second set the fleet manager contacted the tyre chain we used and banned me from ever getting that brand again (Yokohama's or Toyos - can't remember).

I had that car just before speed cameras became common here and enforcement kicked in properly in France.

[Magnum 475]

For silly top speeds, the M40 was brilliant when it first opened. Most truck drivers were still using the M6 / M1, it took a while for them to switch to the M40. For whatever reason, plod didn't seem to bother with it much. Perhaps the lack of traffic meant plod was looking for busier roads.

Some people I know may have had a competition to see who could go from the end of the M25 slip onto the M40, to the start of the M42 in the shortest possible time. They may have been doing this in the early hours of the morning over several months. I couldn't possibly comment on who may have covered that distance the fastest, or in what car, but suffice it to say that they wouldn't get away with it today.

[AC43]

Fiammetta said:

Did 1100 miles in a 86 911 Carrara In 9 hrs inc pit stops returning from the Monaco GP .
That car was as tough as nails , at some points On French autoroutes sat @140 Mph .Slats on the whale tail face forwards ....so I guess quite a lot of air forced through the engine compartment at high speeds .

New 968 CS with few miles returned from Metz to Calais irrc 400 miles in less than 3 hrs touching 170 cruising @150 + mph in early hrs in June .
Next day home pools of oil under the rear transaxle ......both drive shaft oil seals had blown out .Warranty job , flatbed to the OPC
“ we have never seen theses go before sir “
Car had then 3000 miles and was 3 months old in 94


On a flat motorway straight 187 Mph in a Testarossa ....it bounces off the redline and goes like stink from 140 up .The Pork creeps up that last 10-15 mph .Not this .Steering lightens up above 140 bit too light tbo .

2008 December ( shorty after U.K. launch ) in a new X6 3.0 d on German autobahn 130 mph , slight crap to clean off the screen the headlight washers come on every 4 wiper sweeps or something.Got home to find the bumper covers had flown off .....just leaving the pipes / nozzles .
Warranty job ....aero dynamically as they rise up to squirt they resemble a x section of a wing and the excess lift @ high I presume must had ripped them off .
Again back in the U.K.
“ we have never seen anything like this sir “

I suspect they modded the part eventually as others round the EU would inevitably find out .


Theses days are gone , born in the early 60 ,s and roads caked in scam - cameras , I drive sedately now even on French autoroutes never really exceed 82 .In the U.K. theses days ...no chance

Brilliant. I was born in 64. Had my fun from the 80's through to the mid-90's. Very different times.

[Dave Hedgehog]

AC43 said:

Brilliant. I was born in 64. Had my fun from the 80's through to the mid-90's. Very different times.

apart from the lack of the traffic the difference in performance from the avg car on the road to the performance cars was monumental, most cars could just about do 100, now boggo oil burners will do 140+

my best mates dad bought a new orion 1.6i ghia in 95 which was a "race car" compared to his previous 1.3 orion, i took him out in my HKS tuned ST205, he went white LOL

[Megaflow]

Yes, I had a personal challenge that I used to try, which was to double the speed limit along a particular 60mph stretch of road.

My Rover 416GTi could it, indicated 122. But my dads Rover 820Si, no chance, didn’t matter how much speed you carried off the roundabout, and how late you left your braking before the next one, 117-118 was you r lot.

I look back at it now and go

[Limpet]

gazza285 said:

As a youth, there was a motorway bridge near where I lived, you turned off the main road as fast as you dared, floored it, then on the other side of the bridge there was another turning to the left, the challenge was to hit sixty and still make the left turn. My old man managed it in his Dolly Sprint, and a mate did it in his souped up RS2000, most other cars struggled, it wasn't until I got my modified XR3 (no i) that I managed it, and then it was a bit sketchy on the turn.

The wife's diesel XC60 will do it with ease.

I tried it in my V70 Turbo, with a sedate first turn. I was up to sixty and back down to zero before I was within 100 yards of the left turn we all used to struggle to make.

I might drive the same speed as I did back in the day, but it is a lot more comfortable now, and much quieter.

Completely agree with this. Even a humble modern car has a level of composure, roadholding and ability that a performance car of 30 years ago would have struggled to match. Modern performance cars are a level up again.

Likewise there's a road just outside Oxford that I used to enjoy in my Cavalier SRi. It consists of a number of medium-ish bends opening out onto a long straight (with shallow hump bridge in the middle), and then a 90 degree right hander at the end, just to keep you awake. The Cavalier was starting to push its nose wide round the first sequence of bends from 40-50 mph, and if you got a good exit from the last one, you could just about wind it up to a ton before you had to brake for the right hander, and that was pushing your luck.

I did the same thing in the M140i last year. At 50, it was so undramatic it wouldn't have raised an eyebrow from the most nervous of passengers. Pushing on as we went through, you needed 70-75 before you started to have to concentrate a bit. The commitment (and disregard for safety) I used to show could have got it round there at 80, I reckon. And this is far from the most composed modern performance car out there, and the road surface is far worse than it used to be. In fact, it doesn't look or feel like it's been resurfaced since the early 90s.

On the straight, 100 mph would have been laughably easy, and completely undramatic even in something with half the power, as the corner exit speed was so much higher. Back then, it was a white knuckle ride.

Things have definitely moved on.

[Baldchap]

I used to have a stretch called the 'Bridge Run' which was about a third of a mile between a dual carriageway roundabout and a pedestrian bridge. The better the car, the faster you were going when you went under the bridge. Your speed was your score.

Better handling meant you carried more speed round the roundabout, more power meant you picked speed up faster.

Bearing in mind I was young and foolish, I managed an indicated 190mph on a ZZR1100 - a bike with a 178mph top speed. Optimistic speedo, I suspect.

Stopped playing after that. Wouldn't dare do 90 down there these days thanks to police, cameras and traffic.

[Johnnytheboy]

Other thing that has changed is average vehicke width.

I look at some places I used to overtake in a 66bhp car and wonder how on earth I fitted it in.

[Jazoli]

I used to do Blackpool casino to Kendal in under thirty minutes in the early hours regularly in the early 1990's, it became a challenge, we would frequently be airborne at over 120mph four up in my Supra Turbo over the two humps near Garstang, crazy now when I look back but all good fun back then, there'd be three or four of us slipstreaming each other down the M6 absolutely flat out, I'd be in my Supra and there'd be a 20V quattro, another Supra, a BMW 535i and the odd RS Turbo (which always lost ) how we never got caught is beyond me.

[AC43]

Dave Hedgehog said:

AC43 said:

Brilliant. I was born in 64. Had my fun from the 80's through to the mid-90's. Very different times.

apart from the lack of the traffic the difference in performance from the avg car on the road to the performance cars was monumental, most cars could just about do 100, now boggo oil burners will do 140+

my best mates dad bought a new orion 1.6i ghia in 95 which was a "race car" compared to his previous 1.3 orion, i took him out in my HKS tuned ST205, he went white LOL

LOL.

Very true. The first "fast" car I drove was an Alfetta GT 1.8. The fact that it could crack 120 was a big deal when the Cortina 1.6 could wheeze past 90 and the cars a class below were topping out at 80-odd mph.

Then the GTV6 came along. It was so much faster than 99% or the cars on the roads in Fife at the time. My mate had it indicating 135 which was quite something in 1988 or whenever.

[TameRacingDriver]

Sometimes

I used to be a good person to ask about the brake fade of a particular car.

I'm much more sedate nowadays. Except on top gear of course

[blade7]

Fiammetta said:

New 968 CS with few miles returned from Metz to Calais irrc 400 miles in less than 3 hrs touching 170 cruising @150 + mph

...no chance

FTFY.

[drophead]

Yes. Early twenties, first BMW with a 6 cylinder, late night run down from North Circular into Norfolk. An intoxicating proposition.

Can confirm that a 325ti will average 14.8mpg whilst sat at 145... Comfortably too.

Would I do it again? Hell no. Happy I did it? God yes, what a drive that was.

[The Dictator]

Many years ago I was an Estate Agent in Aylesbury (Boo Hiss) and back then I had a MK2 Golf GTI, which I ultimately ruined by chavving it up :-(

I used to time myself on the route from home to Aylesbury, my best time ever was achieved on that route on a Sunday morning.

And then..

I became a police officer some 4/5 years later, also based out of Aylesbury. I was on my 3 week Police driver training course (most fun ever) and happened to be driving toward the village where I still lived from when I was an EA, with my instructor and 2 colleagues onboard.

I mentioned this timing challenge to my Instructor and she asked me if I wanted to try and beat it? I said "yes of course", assuming she was joking.

She wasn't.

We were on week 2 of the course and were in the midst of doing our response driving to an immediate job. We got to the turning out of my village and she gave me the signal.

The lights and sirens switches were flipped and I floored it, with full permission to ignore speed limits, have people pull over to clear the route and basically go hell for leather, but in a safe controlled manner.

Unfortunately I still didn't beat my time :-(

A diesel Astra, 4 up , being driven in a controlled fashion, was no match for a reckless pratt in a Golf GTI. So yes I used to drive like a **** and don't now, on the whole.

[MC Bodge]

TameRacingDriver said:

I used to be a good person to ask about the brake fade of a particular car.

Yes, it surprised me that many people have never experienced it.

I hadn't experienced it for a long time until last year (brakes have improved a lot over the years) in a car that I had recently bought, on a brisk journey over the North Pennines. I changed the pads and fitted cooling ducts the following week.

Edited by MC Bodge on Thursday 21st May 14:07

[juice]

MC Bodge said:

Yes, it surprised me that many people have never experienced it.

I hadn't experienced it for a long time until last year (brakes have improved a lot over the years) in a car that I had recently bought, on a brisk journey over the North Pennines. I changed the pads and fitted cooling ducts the following week.

Edited by MC Bodge on Thursday 21st May 14:07

That reminded me of when my mate lent me his scirocco for getting to London when I used to commute back in the 90's, like this one



I may have occasionally frequently set the brakes alight on the Royal Albert way in Docklands. Long straights and roundabouts did not agree with the Scirocco's limited brakes.

Edited by juice on Thursday 21st May 14:25

[AC43]

juice said:

MC Bodge said:

Yes, it surprised me that many people have never experienced it.

I hadn't experienced it for a long time until last year (brakes have improved a lot over the years) in a car that I had recently bought, on a brisk journey over the North Pennines. I changed the pads and fitted cooling ducts the following week.

Edited by MC Bodge on Thursday 21st May 14:07

That reminded me of when my mate lent me his scirocco for getting to London when I used to commute back in the 90's, like this one



I may have occasionally frequently set the brakes alight on the Royal Albert way in Docklands. Long straights and roundabouts did not agree with the Scirocco's limited brakes.

Edited by juice on Thursday 21st May 14:25

LOL they were a bit challenged.

I remember hooning around in the borders; me in one Sud Sprint, my mate in another. We'd be egging each other on and going harder and harder. More than once when we stopped the front discs would be glowing a dull red colour. They'd never completely gave in but would begin to get a bit squishy and the pads would be smoking like crazy when we stopped.

The only time I ever totally ran out of brakes was in my S14 200SX on an extremely long and twisty descent in the Spanish Pyrenees. Two up, loads of luggage and loads of full turbo over takes downhill between the hairpins. No wonder the locals were taking it so easy......

On that same trip, on the way home, I made it from Spain to Le Mans in an insane time. It wasn't my fault, it was the French guy in the Alfa who made me do it.

Edited by AC43 on Thursday 21st May 14:52

[ollie plymsoles]

Jazoli said:

I used to do Blackpool casino to Kendal in under thirty minutes in the early hours regularly in the early 1990's, it became a challenge, we would frequently be airborne at over 120mph four up in my Supra Turbo over the two humps near Garstang, crazy now when I look back but all good fun back then, there'd be three or four of us slipstreaming each other down the M6 absolutely flat out, I'd be in my Supra and there'd be a 20V quattro, another Supra, a BMW 535i and the odd RS Turbo (which always lost ) how we never got caught is beyond me.

We used to jump the Garstang humps two's up on bikes. A bit further along that road and turn right to head over quernmore with its humps and bumps we were flat out, it was like riding the TT course lol. It's a good road in cars too but too many police on it due to it being a good biker road.

[trails]

AC43 said:

LOL they were a bit challenged.

I remember hooning around in the borders; me in one Sud Sprint, my mate in another. We'd be egging each other on and going harder and harder. More than once when we stopped the front discs would be glowing a dull red colour. They'd never completely gave in but would begin to get a bit squishy and the pads would be smoking like crazy when we stopped.

The only time I ever totally ran out of brakes was in my S14 200SX on an extremely long and twisty descent in the Spanish Pyrenees. Two up, loads of luggage and loads of full turbo over takes downhill between the hairpins. No wonder the locals were taking it so easy......

On that same trip, on the way home, I made it from Spain to Le Mans in an insane time. It wasn't my fault, it was the French guy in the Alfa who made me do it.

Edited by AC43 on Thursday 21st May 14:52

Classic Impreza brakes (two and four pot) were super easy to overwhelm. Not a first experience you forget either