Speed is not of the essence and what is fast anyway? 200 km/h is, I tell you.
I was almost embarrassed to admit it when I acquired a really fast car, because I’ve always been much smitten with style, sound, history, shapes, colors and everything else good and fine as criteria for choosing my classic cars. But my Chevrolet Corvette, which I presented here in this piece: My Fastest Car Ever: My New 22-Year-Old Chevrolet Corvette) is in some ways a break away for me – including, among other things, the complete secondary fact that it is quite fast. Some sources say one thing, but others state the top speed at 282 km/h (or 175 mph to you non-Metrics out there). As ever there is not full agreement on this, and in history it has never really ever been different: Did a Countach ever reach 300 km/h? Was a 911 Turbo really not faster than 260 km/h? Could an E-type really reach 150 mph in standard form. And so on.
In fact I did not buy a Corvette because of its top speed, let me emphasize that: I am still not to be had for cheap performance and potent power. Yes, The Corvette happened to have that too, but for me that was a secondary thing, and in reality I chose the Corvette based on the usual background of shapes, sound, history and all that. But I’ve just noticed one thing lately: Hardcore car enthusiasts not to mention the professionals in the industry have become completely number blind and don’t consider the kind of performance anything.
It really dawned on me when I researched quite thoroughly on an Aston Martin V8 Vantage in the summer of 2019 – with a view to an excellent season 2020, where I played with the thought of enjoying a season in a more modern car with super performance in real life. Such an early V8 Vantage with the small engine of 385 horses accelerates from 0-100 km/h in 5 seconds and can reach a top speed of 280 km/h. Nevertheless, I read and saw several reviews of the model where the test pilots loudly and clearly stated that “it is a nice car and handles well, but it is not really fast” or other nonsense of that kind.
280 km/h not really fast? 0-100 in five seconds not quick either? Are they completely insane?!? This corresponds very well to the figures for the eighties’ great dream icons, Countach, Testarossa and 911 Turbo. And it’s not because 280 km/h as an absolute speed has been devalued since the eighties. Nor have the conditions for actually reaching such speeds anywhere improved: If you have ever tried to approach a couple of lorries on the motorway doing 300 km/h, you will know how nerve-wracking the thought of whether one pulls out to overtake is – as you are approaching at a three times higher speed.
In that way raw top speed makes little sense, and it’s been many years since I realized this. That is, on a purely practical level. I fully agree that on many other levels it is the very thing that defines, for example, one Italian supercar rather than another Italian supercar. Or just the two rather than a German. And I myself am fascinated by the fact that a Ferrari Testerossa goes 297 km/h – and not the three kilometers more that Countach claimed to be able to do ten years before.
All this is folklore, fairy tales, bar room talk – without practical significance. And I think in the same breath it’s quite ridiculous to claim that 280 km/h is not fast. Just because some others can drive 400 kmh? Well, they are even more wrong, then.
I would hereby like to officially state that 200 km/h is fast. Everything above that is varying degrees of very fast, really fast, wildly fast, insanely fast, far too fast and so on. If you do not understand this, then it’s back to the Playstation console.
