The Pantera is the very hottest item in this year's automotive haute couture. By comparison, other cars seem to pop out of the muzzle like a cork on a string, but the Turbo is truly shot out of a gun. It does very well in the high-speed situations. It is a seesaw battle between boost, lag, understeer, oversteer, and solid doses of kickback through the steering wheel. The Chevelle was charging around the track, its ears laid back and its hood louver snapped open to battle position. In compliance with California noise laws the exhaust has been restricted to a benevolent rumble, but the air rushing into the carburetor to feed those cubic inches sounded like it was trying to take half the landscape with it.
The Chevelle is a big car, enormous on Lime Rock, a tight, twisty, 1. Across the start-finish line at mph, hard on the brakes for the Hook, wheels cocked in for the turn and clipping the infield grass at the apex—it seemed right at home. And it was doing very well, too. With a best lap of it was the fastest non-race car that Jim Haynes, the track manager, could remember. The cornering speeds were good too Steering gets plenty quick at mph.
And the suspension, which felt like flint on Sunset Strip, is supple, almost loose. In this high-velocity never-neverland all your senses need reorientation: A road that looks mirror flat pitches you violently up and down; the air makes tortured noises you hear right through the glass as it scrapes over the top of the windshield; an unseen force slowly twists and tortures the outside mirror until it surrenders and ends up pointing skyward.
New Cars. Buyer's Guide. Type keyword s to search. Today's Top Stories. David Dewhurst Car and Driver. December To mark the fourth birthday of the Corvette, its proud parents, the Chevrolet Motor Division, have announced the model which has undergone some extensive but not too important changes on the surface and a few rather interesting ones underneath.
Don Typond. May Chances are that by the time you read this the '56 Corvette will have made a profound impression on the whole sports car world, and after having had one under me for a couple of days I will be the last to be surprised. February The Porsche Spyder is a fantastic machine. June Starting the dual-quad car was easy, by twisting the ignition switch, though some care was needed to avoid flooding on hot starts.
March With each annual change, Zora Arkus-Duntov, the Corvette's godfather, has emphasized performance improvements. June Chevrolet's injection is a premature baby, but it's still alive and kicking. Jesse Alexander. September It was a Sunday afternoon in late spring. July The Lime Rock pit straight is a wavy, gray blur.
James V. John Hearst. May The Corvette has come a long way since it was introduced in March Most knowledgeable enthusiasts reacted negatively when Pontiac announced that their new Tempest sports model was to be called the GTO. Humphrey Sutton. Rear axle ratio is listed as 3. I asked John Davis last night, because I knew he had worked on some for other people. Quite recently he had won a hillclimb driving a Dodge for Cled Davies of Bendigo; and John said that one runs out to rpm, which is over twice what the good brothers originally intended.
You must bear in mind that Dodge 4 is considerably more rugged that T Ford down below. Henry Formby used Dodge conrods in his Cadillac for many years with aluminium pistons, and he used to cruise that at 50mph or more.
It is the hinged Cadillac rods that are problematical, and GM obviously knew that and were worried and counselled Ken Moss about the risk when he drove his up Pike's Peak when he shipped it to California and drove it most of the way across your country and back in the early 's. Ken assured them that it would be right; but he didn't tell them he knew it would be right because he was running International Black Diamond conrods in it.
Obviously if you want Dodge to run smoothly you start by balancing crankshaft, flywheel, rods and pistons, then you do the same to wheels, tyres, and brake drums. Very few makers thought about wheel balancing early on. Mercer did. There are five rim bolts irregularly paced on each wheel. Ralph Buckley told me this was done for balancing.
I dont know the first thing about judging, or restoring cars for judging, so I am not prepared to express any opinion on whether you should dock points because someone has known better than Finley Robertson Porter. Dodge had gearbox problems if you want to drive them any great distance. Most gearboxes rely on the layshaft to maintain lubrication of the gearbox. Dodge apparently decided the cars would run better and more economically if the layshaft did not turn in top gear, and they would rely on hope and distant memory for lubrication.
I understand that people here replace the little roller bearings with scintered bronze bushings, and slow right down every fifteen or twenty miles to run for a little in second to re-oil everything. Funny, some previous owner had fitted one onto the Mercer, but I never attempted to run it.
If I had left that on it could never have done half an hour in twenty minutes. Brakes: I cannot find Ken Purdy's book "Kings of the Road this minute, but I know he described Mercer Raceabout brakes by advising that you pay strict attention to the countryside ahead.
When Ralph Buckley insisted that I drive his T-head Raceabout, he instructed me not to use the foot-pedal transmission brake. The story of how this came about you might enjoy, but it is out of context here. Brakes of most early cars are limited by steel brake drums, and the linings which you have to use with them. Fortunately you can do a great deal to increase their effectiveness without compromising the original appearance.
I recall a Dodge 4 brake drum with a bg bolt operated by a chord, which was used as a gong in our timber mill so the planer operator could signal the boiler man that he wanted the steam engine started or stopped.
These external contracting foot brakes have a problem of their own that in the wet, they only work at all only after long and careful thought. The rim of the drum also deforms when it wears thin. Several decades ago the State Electricity Commision had some big Mercedes wheel tractors in the power station open cut coal mine.
It was very abrasive where they worked, and the brake discs lasted mere weeks. On one occasion there were no replacements in the country, so as they had Metco wire feed metal spray equipment, they rebuit the worn discs with Metco Spraysteel LS. If they had to replace those discs again it was after a very long time. It is compatible with modern lining material. To get rid of the water you cut a series of grooves in the lining at 45 degrees, a couple of inches apart.
Do not worry about the big diameter narrow tyres. The footprint on the ground is long. Remember that A model Duesenberg and straight 8 Stutz could stop from 30mph in 30feet, and from 50mph in 86 feet. In TV road safety ads here they dont claim anything like this, despite 60 years advance in tyre compound, road surface,brakes, and suspension.
Some people with external contracting footbrakes alter them slighty so the internal handbrake is simultaneously activated. I understand this improves the brake effectiveness because the drum is squeezed like a disc brake. And if you doubt the application as a proper use for a metal coating. That is a good comparison: But you really can do something about it which even the trained eye will not detect.
I have rebuilt a lot of drums for people over the years, and even front discs for such an unlikely modern import as a Buick Riviera. One man talked me into rebuilding the rear drums of a little English car called a Perry, which I was not keen about because you could just see daylight where one of the two sets of parallel shoes ran.
The drums were integral with the hubs, and for various reasons it would have been difficult to make new ones. I asked Barry why they were so worn, and he said it was the cast iron linings.
I said, "You are going to use modern linings, aren't you? About 8 years later I ran into him at Bendigo Swap, and he said "Oh, we had the back end of the Perry apart the other week, and the drums are perfect! And it is the only car in the Veteran Car Club with cast iron brakes that work properly.
Modern cast iron. Stephen Hands was a Metco field engineer, and when he wanted to make front brakes for his bull-nose Morris he had drums cast in good aluminium alloy, and sprayed LS inside for the working surface. That made better drums than you could do any other way; excellent brake characteristics, excellent heat dispersal, and low added unsprung weight. The drums on my are are "centrifuse" steel with a cast iron liner.
It turns out the company that made those for Chrysler is still in business but only make that type of drum for very large trucks. I have long thought that I could use metal spray to to return the brake drums to standard size. But I have gotten very negative feedback when I made inquiries. The places that did metal spraying did not want to touch brake components I think for fear of liability. Everyone else wants to press in sleeves which for a variety of reasons I have my doubts about.
I assume from your spelling of aluminum and reference to Bendigo that you are in Australia. I am not sure if suppliers there would translate to ones in the U.
Yes, I am in Australia. I have rebuilt a lot of brake drums for people over the years. I understand from Stephen Hands that there is or was a company called Safety Brakes in Adelaide, which used one of Metco's powder material systems, and used so much of the particular powder that they had a special price which made it viable.
It had set four of the last five speed records, and exactly the same cars were in this race. The first five cars to Bordeaux in all averaged remarkable speed under the conditions: Mors By comparison, the race on the same roads was won at 49 mph, the race at 30 mph and the race at American Arthur Duray was the first man to drive at more than 80 miles an hour, when the veteran professional driver covered the flying kilometer in With the car speed record fast closing on the steam train's speed record, the next contender came from left field, as experimentation with the electric train pushed the world land speed record out of reach of the automobile once more.
On 28 October , the AEG railcar was timed at Duray did it again on 5 November in the same car, pushing the new car speed record to Eugene Brillie had developed an opposed-piston engine in which each cylinder has a piston at both ends, and no cylinder head. The engine powered the company's road cars in several versions, the largest of which was an It also ran on alcohol.
The first sustained and controlled, heavier-than-air, powered flight took place at am at Kittyhawk, North Carolina. The Wright Flyer flew just ft Despite the skies being opened at Kittyhawk, the outright world speed record and the land speed record remained one in the same for many decades after Orville Wright's maiden flight, as planes were initially not as fast as cars, and the sustained number of automobile speed record attempts pushed the automobile ever faster.
Barney became the first person to travel at over 90 mph other than by rail, and he did so using the brutal cu. At 1, rpm, the was geared for miles an hour. The Henry Ford alliance with Barney Oldfield was fortuitous for both parties. Oldfield launched a glorious career in motorsport and appears again in this very story , while Henry gained impetus in his ultimate quest using the record to propel him towards global recognition in many spheres.
The full story is in the video below from Racing in America. LOG IN. Menu HOME. Search Query Submit Search. By Mike Hanlon. Facebook Twitter Flipboard LinkedIn. The first person to achieve miles in an hour was Percy Lambert, on 15 February , driving a 4. View Images. This Department of Commerce Statistical Abstract of the United States clearly shows the growth of both the American automotive industry and the size of the U. Most of the world's cars in were in America and had been made in America.
Deliveries began in The winner of the first motorsport event in history was a De Dion Bouton steam car pulling a trailer and driven by Count De Dion himself. The race ran over a 78 mile km route from Paris to Rouen of 22 July , and though he was the first car across the finishing line, he was disqualified because the car required a stoker someone to tend the boiler.
The epic ten-day, 1, km Paris—Marseille—Paris race of February was won by a 2. Levassor's total time of 48 hours and 48 minutes yields an average of On 18 December , the very first speed record for automobiles was set when the French magazine "La France Automobile" held the world's first outright speed contest for cars, with the fastest car on the day being a Jeantaud driven by as French Count Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat.
Jenatzy created the first "purpose built" car for a land speed record which he named the "Jamais Contente. The car ran In March, , the new Mercedes 35 hp stormed at Nice Speed Week produced a clean sweep of the Nice-La Turbie event, raising the average speed from the previous best of Jellinek's concept was to lower the centre-of-gravity of the cars at the same time as lengthening the wheelbase and widening the car, all resulting in much better roadholding.
The design is quite distinct from the stagecoach layouts inherited from the horse-drawn era which dominated automobile design prior to then. The first car with an internal combustion engine ICE to hold the automobile speed record, was the hp, 10 liter four-cylinder Mors. At Chartres, France the mors Type Z ran Mors improved its own record to On 28 October , an experimental railcar with an AEG drivetrain was timed at American Arthur Duray was the first man to drive at more than 80 miles an hour, when the veteran professional driver covered the flying kilometre in Duray did it again in the Gobron-Brillie on 5 November , pushing the new car speed record to The unconventional Gobron Brillie motor was an opposed-piston engine in which each cylinder has a piston at both ends, and no cylinder head.
This one-off Darracq appears to be the very first car built from scratch to contain a 25, cc V8 producing hp in a car that weighed just kg lb. The Napier was the first car recorded at more than mph on 25 January, at Daytona Beach, Florida. On 29 January , Fred Marriott drove the Stanley Steam Company's best known creation to set the final record for steam at This hp Mercedes special ran The full story of Glen Curtiss and his V8 motorcycle can be found in our feature article, the tale of the Curtiss V8, the only motorcycle ever to hold the outright land speed record.
Curtiss ran Curtis' main business was the manufacture of high-power, lightweight engines for a range of purposes. Recognising the low weight and minimal frontal area of the motorcycle offered an easy way to demonstrate his wares to the public and sell more of his engines so he installed one of his cc V8 aircraft engines essentially four of his v-twins , into a motorcycle and blew all competitors into the weeds with a run of Those are the first two data points on the graph above left , showing the progress of the motorcycle speed record from onwards.
You can see Curtis was decades ahead of his time. The Blitzen-Benz was built specifically to establish new speed records and at its heart was a Barnie Oldfield in the Blitzen Lightning Benz. On 17 March , Barney set a new speed record of Bob Burman broke Barney Oldfield's record, covering a mile from a flying start at an average speed of This was the highest speed ever attained by a road vehicle prior to WW1 and set up a world record which remained unbeaten until The first record set under new rules that required two-way runs was yet another hp Blitzen Benz accomplishment on 24 June at Brooklands in the United Kingdom.
Lydston Hornsted ran The Spain's young King Alfonso XIII was one of Hispano-Suiza's first customers and when Hispano-Suiza's racing voiturette won France's prestigious Coupe de l'Auto race in and turned it into a road car, Alfonso drove the new model, bought one and gave permission for the new model to carry his name. Some people regard this as the world's first sportscar.
The winning Thomas Flyer was a production car in every respect and "It shows the American car is on par with the foreign machine, and it marks the beginning of the end of the European supremacy," claimed Robert Lee Morell at the Auto Club of America at a luncheon upon the car's arrival in the US.
This is the car that won the famous New York to Paris automobile race in - it's an off-the-shelf Thomas Flyer model and in winning the epic race, it enhanced an already sound reputation for speed and reliability to legendary status. Even if motorcars aren't your schtick and you don't know what it did, you will have heard of the "Thomas Flyer" even though the last one was made 97 years ago.
The pioneering company achieved many great feats with its wares but winning the only around-the-world race that's ever been held is the marque's greatest achievement. The winning car from the epic race is on display in Reno, Nevada, at the National Automobile Museum , alongside the trophy. Pierce-Arrow was one of the most prestigious of American manufacturers in this period with the speed to cover vast distances quickly. The company's reputation for performance and reliability was validated when the Pierce Great Arrow won the famed Glidden Tour five years in a row , achieving perfect scores in all but one of them.
The name "tour" may not convey the gruelling nature of these tours. The following video shows the speed and endeavour shown by the drivers in difficult conditions.
The quality of Mors road cars in the first decade of the 20th Century was one of the selling feayures, along with speed and reliability. The Duesenberg J was so dominant at its time that the company did what every respectable car company would do — they pimped it out.
The SJ had a hp, inline, eight-cylinder engine with a centrifugal supercharger, a three-speed manual transmission, beam-type front, live rear axles with semi-elliptic leaf springs, and four-wheel vacuum-assisted hydraulic drum brakes. Interestingly enough, the car was initially designed for Mae West, who ultimately declined the design.
Perhaps the best testament to how dominant the Duesenberg was at its time is that for the next decade, no one could create a faster car — although, in all fairness, no one really cared about that during WWII.
After the war, it was time for the Jaguar to rise to prominence. The XK was sold between and For high speeds, the windshield had to be folded down, which must have given riders quite a thrill.
With supreme class and luxury, it was the undisputed ruler of the highways, and even today, they are sold at lavish auctions for dazzling prices.
Due to the huge popularity, huge price tag, great look, and rarity of the DB4 GT, many replica cars have been constructed, and even those replicas sell extremely well.
The duo won with an average speed of Ferrari continued to assert its dominance over the next decade as well. Its direct competitor, the Porsche , was almost just as fast at mph, but Ferrari again took the crown. It was so amazingly fast th at it won the LeMans not only in its class but also in the prototype class, something which was unheard of for a streetcar — to this date, this is considered one of the most incredible feats in motorsports.
The current Super Sport version of the Veyron is recognized by Guinness World Records as the fastest street-legal production car in the world. The Veyron features an 8.
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