OT: Talking Cars Tuesday - Speed & less speed

Growing up around Ann Arbor, I had some contacts at Car and Driver magazine, and one time the then-road test editor took me for a ride in a Ferrari 575 Maranello.  A Ferrari V12 at full song on Jackson Ave is quite the experience!!!

Slowest car would be my great-uncle's late 50s Willy's Jeep that he mostly used as a farm implement and snowplow.  I don't think it had been registered for a few decades but we took it in the woods and such.

My first car was a 93 Ford Festiva. It was free, all I had to do was replace the tranny. $50 later at the local junk yard and I had her running (more like jogging). The car lasted forever, but it was incredibly slow. I used to feel like I could Flintstone it faster than the little motor would go. There was nothing like the feeling of filling up for $12 though.

When I was in high school, my gear head boyfriend and his best friend convinced me to flip the cover of the air filter on my Z-28. It didn't make it faster (it was pretty fast anyway), but it did make it sound like a rocket when you punched it. We spent several hours taking turns driving past his house, while the other two sat on the lawn listening to the engine. That's the kind of stuff we did, pre-internet. 

My fastest car would be my personal 2014 Mustang GT.  Slowest would be my dad's work truck. It was like one of the UPS looking trucks but worse and older. I don't even think it could go above 60-65mph.

I learned to drive on my parents' 1962 Rambler Classic, a remarkably ugly and ungainly econocar. It was three on the tree with no real pickup or acceleration, and the only redeeming feature was that the front seats folded down flat, which came in handy with my HS girlfriend.

I also owned a '73 VW squareback, which had some great practical features but had absolutely no ooomph regardless of how far down you mashed the gas pedal.

1978 Chevette 4door A/T

but the fastest I've ever driven a car was a 1990 Cavalier Z24 convertible that I had going 120 on I-94 way out west of Kalamazoo.  The PROM chip kicked in at that point, and wouldn't let us go any faster.

The slowest was a Pontiac T1000, that I was afraid to hit 65 with on the highway. Ten-speed tires and about 65 pounds that thing would float like none other.

My current car is my fastest. As a 2013 Charger r/t it certainly isn't slow, but it isn't particularly impressive. Do love the car though, looks good drives well and was reasonably priced.

My slowest was easily my '99 Mercury Tracer. That thing had a 0-60 of n/a. But damned if it wasn't practical, and I bought it in 2006 for $2200 when it only had 50k miles and no non-cosmetic issues. 

Early 70s Corolla/Tercel had a 1.6L.  Speed depended on incline.  Also, hydraulic windshield wiper speed depended on rpm of the engine.  Gave the owner a lot of grief for that car.  

Yup, you heard it right.   It's the only car that I've been in at speeds exceeding 100 mph.   I wasn't driving.   It wasn't pleasant.   I thought I was going to die.  

Edit:  Slowest was my Dad's old orange 1970's, half-rusted pickup.  It was a wood hauling truck.  He could get it to 50 mph on the highway, but the cab shook with an earthquake-like violence at those speeds.  That thing was slow.  

Slowest:  First car - 1981 VW Rabbitt Diesel.  49hp.  Top speed around 65mph depending on wind.

Fastest:  Testdrive of a 2003 Jaguar XJ Supercharged.

Understand:  I've owned an XJR (fastest car I've owned), and I've driven several Porsches on a track, including a 911 GTS.  That '03 Jag was STUPID fast.  It's listed around 600hp and feels like more than that.  It's a huge car but you never knew it when you put your foot on the floor.  It's leave-it-in-the-dust faster than the 2014 911 Carrera GTS I drove at High Plains Raceway.

Do yourself a favor and go testdrive the modern Jags.  Not recommending you buy one.  Just drive one.  They've seriously decided to be the sportiest of the luxery Euro brands.

I think my fastest car is the G37 I'm currently driving.  It goes 0-60 in about 5 seconds and will run a sub 14 second quarter mile.  I live near Woodward and have surprised quite a few muscle cars at stop lights.  Someone, not me of course, may also have had this car up to about 135 on a deserted expressway.  That person tells me that the car was still pulling hard and felt like it would hit 170 easily.

I also had a 76 Grand Torino with a Lincoln 460 dropped in it that was pretty fast too, but I never timed it.

My slowest car? I've only had one that I would call slow.  A 1990 Audi 90.  Five speed, inline 5 cylinder engine.  That car could barely get out of its own way but it was totally bulletproof.  I put about 250k on that car before I finally gave it away.

The fastest car I've ever been in is probably a 1967 Shelby GT500 that a friend's dad bought. However, I did (stupidly, in retrospect) have by WRX up to 145 once on a highway with no other cars around, and that's easily the fastest I've ever been in a car.

Slowest is the time my wife and I had to drive from Traverse City to Pittsburgh in her Kia Rio with one of the injectors broken; I had to take over the shifting because the misfire would shake the car under 3500rpm. In terms of cars that were actually working properly, maybe the pink Ford Aspire that one of my high school friends had.

Fastest car is my first car, '15 Camaro v6. Slowest is my mom's Ford minivan, I think it's a 2005 Freestar. Neither are extreme and I haven't driven the Camaro over 90 anyway.

My driver in Moscow had a Lada that was severely underpowered, ran on leaded gas, and incredibly slow not just due to the small engine and faulty manual transmission, but also because it was often broken down. My firm eventually leased a Volvo to replace it. 

I don't know about 'fast' but two of the funnest little cars I've been in were my high school buddy's Lotus 7 kit car, he raced it at Lime Rock, and my boss' Lotus Elise. Fun, light, quick little cars. 

was a Shelby 500 Mustang. I drove it on an 8 mile oval course in Uvalde, TX. Talk about a course that offers some great straightaways. They were about 3 miles long. I worked for Continental's advanced automotive technologies division at the time and we had to put 500 miles on each car before our customer's arrived to drive them on all of the test courses at the facility in Uvalde. To this day I have no idea why we had to put the 500 miles on the cars, but my 500 miles went by quite fast. 

I consistently hit 165 - 175 mph on the straightaways and was taking the corners around 140 mph. It was the most fun I have ever had in a car and one of the best experiences of my life. 

Slowest was an actual mustang. It only had one hp.

Fastest I've owned was my 2007 Subaru Legacy 2.5GT.

Slowest I've owned was my 1992 Plymouth Laser (that car was such a piece).