Originally Posted by
ekrampitzjr
On the radio the other day was the news that Shelby intends to produce a supercar capable of 270 mph. Haven't bothered to try to find any info online, as the prospect of yet another ridiculously fast vehicle for showoffs appalls me.
We can blame the German manufacturers for starting this insane horsepower and top speed war some years ago; now it has infested every auto-producing country.
The big problem I see with this is not just the question of how the average driver would ever be able to use such speed capabilities legally on public roads: it is that this kind of excess attracts the unwelcome attention of legislators and environmentalists who can then use the existence of such vehicles to batter the automakers for such wretched excess. They do have an argument: the engineering talent and money wasted on creating such supercars would have been far better spent on trying to research and produce, say, a full-sized family sedan that can achieve 75 miles per US gallon of gasoline. The automakers can build excess numbers of cars capable of screaming down a road illegally at 150 to 200+ mph, but can't dedicate the same resources to building more fuel efficient cars? What gives? At least so some observers think.
Chris Davies, a British member of the European Parliament (European Union), seriously proposed in 2007 placing a speed limiter set at about 101 mph on new cars sold in member countries. He said then that 101 mph represented the average motorway speed limit in EU countries (except in Germany on selected autobahns) of 81 mph plus 25% over, and why would more be necessary for most drivers? Police vehicles would have been exempted. His proposal was not seriously considered after serious criticism from Germany and various automotive groups, but again I believe he had a point. And Germany has been under a lot of pressure from the European Union to impose blanket speed limits on its autobahns to standardize traffic laws.
But what do I know? I was hounded off another automotive forum, BobIstheOilGuy.com, for daring to criticize the 252-mph Bugatti Veyron on the same grounds. Some can't see the forest for the trees. But lawmakers and antiautomobile environmentalists certainly do, and they notice such excess, which was my point...
