What are your stories about riding or driving a car that was not only fast, but *scary *fast?
I currently own a 2008 Mustang GT. Its got a little north of 300 horsepower and about 320 ft/lbs of torque. Its fast enough for what it is, about 5.5 seconds to 60 mph and a quarter mile time in the 13.8 @ 100 or so mph range. But it doesn’t *scare *me. Its thrilling to drive, but its still within normal constructs of “just another car”.
The scariest car I ever rode in was a modded Honda Civic that one of my former employees built over the course of a couple summers. Its a built motor, lots of performance mods, turbocharged/intercooled and makes about 440 rwhp on the dyno.
It also weighs only about 2300lbs and is front wheel drive, meaning zero traction and ridiculous amounts of torque steer.
That thing scared the shit out of me. He took it to a local track and with racing slicks on the front he managed a 10.9 quarter mile time…at over 130mph…and with traction issues still.
What fast car experiences have literally scared the shit out of you?
A nitpick. I believe that rwhp means “rear wheel horsepower”.
Perhaps you are trying to say that the Civic has 440 net horsepower, or
440 front wheel horsepower ?
One of the scariest cars that I ever rode in was my uncles Sunbeam Tiger:
Getting rides in a friend’s customized '48 Chevy pickup. Looked stock except for the all-terrain tires mounted to rims that looked like they belonged on a Jeep but when he opened up that 350…:eek:!
I have a 1980 Pontiac Sunbird (same as a Vega) with a 350, instead of the original tiny 4 cylinder. That is a scary car to drive. Way too much power, especially considering the lack of power steering and drum brakes all around.
But it is sooo fun! Until I finally take out that telephone pole that has been taunting me…
When I went home at Thanksgiving, my dad was still able to drive, and he took me out in the Porsche 928 he bought. We hit 138 MPH. When we came to a stop, I couldn’t stop laughing from the adrenaline rush (and the relief at not being dead).
My dad had always wanted a Porsche. I’m glad he was able to have one before he died, and I’ll always treasure the memory of how much fun we had, even though I was also scared to death.
Porsche 928 S4…130mph on I285 (The Perimeter) around Atlanta, in medium traffic, for about 30 seconds. No big deal on the Autobahn in Germany, but it scared the shit out of me once I really thought about what I was doing.
When I was in college, a friend had some kind of Dodge with the biggest Hemi engine they made at the time. This was during the 60’s when gas was cheap and engines were huge. The engine was so powerful that I had to drive the car with my foot on the brake. Just a tap of the accelerator would send the car lurching forward. It was undriveable in a normal way. Even though I have owned several sports cars since then, which I thoroughly enjoyed, I’ve never lusted for a mega-horsepower car since.
2004 Subaru WRX STi, belonging to a friend who was obsessed with it. Spent every penny he earned for years upgrading and tweaking everything he possibly could. The way that thing throws you back in the seat, the only thing comparable is one of those electromagnetic roller coaster launchers, except that you’re behind the wheel. It’s quite amazing what you can get out of a flat-4 these days.
Not a car, but I’ve gone scary fast in my bike (A Honda CBR-600). 150mph indicated, so probably about 130mph actual - bike speedos get notoriously unreliable the faster you go. it was on a long, empty, very straight stretch of road in West Virginia. I backed off right quick, never did it again.
Aged 17 on my first powerful bike. Took it one night for a run on the local high speed road, had the speedo nudging 110 when the electrics blew so I’m suddenly doing over a 100mph in pitch darkness. Needed a change of trousers after that one.
A few years ago on a business trip to Dubai. The client I was meeting had a Porsche Carrera and driving back from Dubai to Abu Dhabi he hit 130mph. The car felt stable as hell but we’d just finished a 3 hour lunch with some of his customers and I know he had drank at least one bottle of wine and 2 or 3 large brandys on top. Luckily I’d had a fair amount to drink as well…
Once, in the family car, a 1992 Volvo 960, aluminum straight 6, while I was alone on a straight, flat, well known (to me) road on Maryland’s Eastern Shore at 1am, I decided to see if the speedometer was a lie. I slowly edged it up over 125 and car acted like it was very steady there (honestly it was slow to accelerate but always happy to keep going once you got to your desired speed.)
I ran it for about 30 seconds, then considered the probability of deer, and decided to slow it on down and head home.
I’m not a racing or fast driving type, but I held 135-140 mph in slightly souped up Ford Focus in 2001 in Hungary. They do have speed limits, but I was being followed and trailed by an Audi and Mercedes, so I felt a certain courage in numbers. Absolutely wretched fuel economy at those speeds, and the splattered long streaks of bugs was something to behold.
Other than that, I’ve been a passenger in a Lotus Espirit Turbo, but nothing too crazy speed wise. Thing is, those just feel do much faster at any given speed, given their lowness to the ground. Also, I’ve been in a couple cop cars as a journalist in Germany and South Africa where the drivers hit about 150 mph.
The scariest was my cousin and his 500+ hp ~2003 Mustang Cobra. He was out showing off his car to me on I55 in Chicago and he jacked that thing up to about 125 in normal highway traffic. Scared the living shit out of me.
Scariest was on the back of a friend’s bike - don’t recall what type, but a Japanese brand cruiser, not a racing bike. An ex and I were doing a charity poker run, and were on our way to the next stop via I95. We topped a hill, and there was the biggest, blackest storm cloud you could imagine. K told me to hang on tight, and I did, because we both knew that there was nowhere to take shelter until the next exit, 4 miles away. We outran the downpour by seconds. At one point, I peeked over K’s shoulder at the speedometer, and we were still accelerating at 115. That’s when I decided to just close my eyes and hope for the best… personally, I’d have preferred to just get wet, but that wasn’t the time or place for an argument!
Scariest for my own passenger was when my then-husband was test driving vehicles. We were in need of a family ride, but he kept bringing home stupid stuff like Camaros. One night, he handed me the keys to an Eclipse Spider. We were out in the country, so I aired it out. He bought a Jeep Cherokee the next day.
I had a BMW R1100S that I wanted to push and heard they had a top speed of ~141. I took it on I95 between Daytona and St. Augustine and when I could see no vehicles in front of me as far as the eye could see I took it up to 130.
Still really scares the shit out you when you approach cars that are going 70. They come up really fast.
No doubt. The fastest I ever drove my Mustang was 135. I was coming from Northern Kentucky from the dealership I’d bought it from, approaching the I-275 bridge from NKY into SE Indiana where I live. There’s a gradual downhill there approaching the bridge across the Ohio River, and, seeing no traffic and already going about 75mph, I decided to slam it into third gear from fifth and mash it. By the time I approached the foot of the bridge (a blink of an eye, it seemed), I was already doing 135mph in 4th gear at about 5200rpm’s, with another 1000 rpm’s in 4th to go and another gear. I was worried about hitting some of the potholes on the bridge so that was as far as I dared to take it. Once you get past a certain speed, things start to blur by really quickly!
I’ve been driving fast things for so long nothing really stands out.
168 in a C5 Corvette in Nevada? Yeah, pretty memorable
115 on the runway at Stapleton Internation Airport at a Mercedes Club Event, after it closed but before they tore it up with crappy tires? (Skidding through the corner, the only way to keep control was to just let go of the steeringwheel)
45 mph gas pedal buried, left hand sweeper in a GoKart? (it’s AMAZING how hard they corner)
The BMW K1200LT I just bought has some scoot…it’s certainly faster than a whole lotta cars, but for motorcycles, there’s plenty quicker. UNBELIEVABLE Brakes though.
The neighbor’s Z06 C6 in the Business Park on a Sunday morning? There’s damn good reason why the Nannies are installed on that car. 100% of them would end up wrecked.
I had more fun under the speedlimit in a Miata…but I looked like a Gorilla on a Tricycle doing so.
A friend has a pair of Porsche 914s. One is a driver, the other is a years-long project in maximizing performance. I have no idea what he did to it - I am the furthest thing from a car guy. I did wind up wiring the car for him. I only rode in it with him once, tearing around the winding hills of the Argentine neighborhood of Kansas City, KS. He’s an F1 fanatic and he’s trying to capture that experience.
