While driving past Wausau, Wisconsin, I got my '90 Mazda MPV mini-van up to 100 mph. The strange thing was this was at about 9PM in almost Chicago-rush-hour level traffic, and despite the high speed, I was still being passed by most of the cars on I-39. Wisconsin is weird.
Got a BMW to an indicated 137MPH. Course, in the manual it says the top spead is electronically limited to 128, so who knows how fast it actually was? Plenty quick in any case.
A few years ago, a bunch of us were driving to Death Valley in a GMC Safari van. The freeway is a totally flat, straight, 2 lane thing. I’m not really paying attention, then look up to see that the driver has us doing 100MPH in the wrong lane. That was a bit of a shock, to say the least
About 120MPH in my 2000 Toyota Celica GT-S on the NJ Turnpike late at night.
220 km/h (140 mph) in my Mazda MX-3, downhill on a German Autobahn.
(speedometers are notoriously inaccurate as speeds creep past 85. On average, they read anywhere from 5-10 mph high, and some are even worse. Metric: do the conversion yourself)
I topped my 86 Mustang V-6 out. Don’t know the real speed as the speedo only went to 85. I did this a number of times, I would guess it would be around 115-120.
My 96 Escort said 110 and it didn’t seem to like it much so I slowed down.
I’ve had my 2000 Kawasaki Concours up to 120 for a few seconds, much to scary for me. However, I have no problems running it at 90-100 for hours on end, though I get crap milage out of it then. Also the last time I did that in South Dakota the front end was very light.
About 125 mph in my 94 BMW 325i. This was years ago with my girlfriend at the time and a female friend happlily chatting away without a clue. Smooth as silk.
Many times well above 100 mph on the Dallas tollway until traffic got too bad. Now I keep it in check. Don’t want to push my luck.
Driver: 117 in an i4, 125 hp ford contour (well, actually, the mercury mystique). Surprisingly, it didn’t feel topped out - I think I could’ve squeezed another 20 mph out of it at least, but I was paranoid enough driving at that speed about getting a ticket that would take me 3 years to pay off.
Passenger: Somewhere over 160, I think, in a 2000 Grand Am of all things. My friend had just gotten it new sometime in 99, and was showing it off to me, doing about 130 on the freeway. A mid-90s monte carlo (I think) actually passed us doing at least 20 mph more than us - so my friend decided to compete, and we were over 150 and accelerating when I was too paranoid to look at anything but the road, so I didn’t see the speedometer after that. It was a blast, if hugely irresponsible - not exactly a rural interstate we were on, where the average speed was maybe 70 with light to moderate traffic.
I reached speeds of the value of ‘P’ in a company car Dodge Horizon (rabbit clone).
The speedometer stopped at 85, but the needle moved a good 30-45 degrees past that point until it stopped at the ‘P’ in ‘MPH’.
I’ve gone 130 in Jettas & Maximas & Corrollas…but somehow not knowing (and having the engineplant sound like it was starting to rip itself apart) always stands out in my memory…
Good point. Hard to believe, but I read in Car and Driver that the German automakers are required by law to calibrate a vehicle’s speedometer at the top end for the largest possible combination of rims and tires the vehicle could handle such that if an owner makes a tire/rim swap, the speedo will not be optimistic at the high end. Translated: if your Audi, VW, Mercedes, BMW or Porsche has stock tires and rims, your speedo is plenty optimistic at the top end.
135 for me, too, conceivably 140, in a 1965 Pontiac Bonneville. Fairly often in my teens and 20s 
Wow! Does this thread bring back scary memories I thought I’d repressed!
I have no clue how fast we went and I don’t want to know. The speedometer went to 100 and we were going much faster than that. My dad was driving and the car was my grandmother’s giant light blue Cadillac (complete with Christian fish symbol on the bumper and handicapped plates). Imagine seeing that thing flying by you! Not just in the passing lane mind you. We were flying by people on the shoulder, running lights, and sometimes passing on the grass by the side of the road if there wasn’t a shoulder!
The story is this…
It was 1990. My cousin was getting married. She was the first of the grandkids to do so. My grandfather was in another state (we didn’t know this–we thought he was just across town) and his car broke down. He was 200 miles away and he called with all of 4 hours to get to the wedding. So we had 4 hours to get there, pick him up, and get back–all on Iowa country roads. Oh yes, he was supposed to walk my cousin down the aisle.
Dad took grandma’s car to go get grandpa (I think we decided that car had the biggest engine or something). Dad can be a wild man behind the wheel on occassion. I went along to navigate.
If that car is still around, I’ll bet it still has dents in the passenger side arm rest where my fingers were gripping it. At one point, my grandfather laid down in the back seat because he didn’t want to see what was going on.
We got to the church just a few minutes after the wedding was supposed to start. My dad and my grandfather were putting on their ties as they were walking across the church lawn. I think I was putting on mascara (couldn’t let go of the arm rest to do it in the car). Apparently, the organist was playing as slowly as possible to give us time to get there. And the ushers were also moving as slowly as possible. So we ended up getting there right on time.
The funniest part: my cousin didn’t find out until after the wedding. She just figured my grandfather was taking one of his naps and he’d be there when she needed him.
Others have been (slightly) quicker in this thread, but I’m VERY happy to be able to say 168 indicated in our 98 Corvette.
Wide open arrow straight road in Nevada. 25 miles straight, turn 5 degrees, 35 miles straight, turn another 5 degrees, 45 miles.
Did Wide Open Trottle until the needle didn’t go ‘up’ anymore. This was an automatic with the base rear-end. The 6 speed coupes are reportedly good for 172.
It was. um. noisy.
And we did it for 15-20 seconds and then my brain interjected how incredibly stupid it was that we were doing it. The car was dead flat smooth easy to drive though. C5’s don’t have aerodynamic issues until 205-210 mph.
Think I’m kidding? Here’s my Garage
(And the other vette is quicker, but has crummy aerodynamics and a bad tranny. Havent had it above 140 yet.)
112 in high school in my '76 Ford Gran Torino, on the loop around my hometown. Very shaky at that speed. I could practically see the gas gauge dropping.
110 or so, several times, in my '89 Acura Integra. As others have mentioned in this thread, it’s a great car. (and I still have it as a back up). I take it up over 90 every time I get it out on the freeway these days and can’t tell which of us enjoys it more, me or the car.
Demigoddes Know 280 quite well. Have been making the commute from the South Bay to San Francisco on a weekly basis for approx 10 years. Did 140-145 for a few miles in an RX-7 (96) a couple times. Car handled fine with plenty of pedal left, but the road was…rough.
Raced a Ferrari across the Golden Gate bridge and 101N past there. Didn’t go much past 100 but that was more due to the bridge/road.
Now, it’s a rare day when I break 80.
Driven - 110 MPH in a Honda Civic. Felt like I could go quite a bit faster, too.
Ridden - around 125 MPH, in a friends Camaro.
Red-lined (5750 RPM’s) in 5th gear in '94 Formula Firebird modified. 1000RPM’s is 33mph … since gears are linear, 33*5.75= my top speed. Yep.
~160mph on suzuki gsx-r600 modified.
speedometer buried past the last mark which was 140mph in a 1978 Z28 at 1AM on a dark rural road as a passanger when we were in high school.
we hit a deer right in the butt and the poor thing was airborne like one of santas; it never rolled or tumbled through the air, it was just “launched”. it was dazed lying in a ditch at the other side of the road for a few minutes, then it just hobbled off into the dark woods.
no seat belts; I shudder when I think now how lucky we were to walk away unscathed.
the impact broke a 2" piece of the plastic front grille and left a small scratch above the left headlight.
I like Maddy’s tale the best so far.
Ringo, my story you refer to, was that the one where I nearly got myself killed? If so, that was not the fastest I ever drove, just the stupidest.
Fastest on a normal road: 285 km/h on the speedo of a 1987 BMW M635 CSI. It had a supercharger mounted on it: I believe it was the Alpina version. What a monster of a car, fantastic. An empty German Autobahn just across the border, on a Sunday morning. Pure adrenaline. Oh, that’s 177 MPH, by the way.
Fastest on a track: 247 official TAG Heuer timed km/h in a 1985 Ferrari Testarossa in full race trim. No isolation material, no heat padding, 600 BHP (twin turbos on a boxer 12, hmmm!), a cockpit temperature of 60+ degrees Celcius. The car could go much, much faster than that (the owner claimed a top speed of over 320 km/h), but the straight was simply to short. The trick was to brake really late so you’d get a good top speed at the speed trap at the end of the straight: luckily, it came equiped with some serious Brembo brakes that slowed it down from 247 km/h to approximately 80 km/h in a sickeningly short distance. AWESOME. The most amazing thing: you got a better top speed by keeping it in fourth. Shifting to fifth meant losing time: it only needed the first four gears for that track.
Even though the ride in the BMW was faster, the ride in the Testarossa gave me a much bigger thrill. I mean, going straight on an empty Autobahn is fun, but a car like that is just in complete control, fully balanced, not nervous at all. You’re looking at an empty 3 lane highway as far as the eye can see - thrilling, but not an adrenaline rush like gunning a Testarossa towards a 180 degree corner at almost 250 km/h. :eek:
Oh, 247 km/h corresponds with almost 154 MPH.
I’ve maxed out my motorbike a time or two as well. It does about 190 km/h on the speedo, which is 118 MPH (probably less in real miles, though). Hella fast on two wheels, trust me.
My current car tops out at about 115 MPH. Boring.