World's fastest street legal car

[ERD50]

I suppose you can say the same thing for 300 HP cars which are very common...how many people really need that much power?

Yes, I have trouble understanding just what these people buy these cars for. I guess I have to look at it as strictly a hobby, you do it because you want to, no rationalization required. But I'm a little bit glad they do, I'm happy to watch from afar, and study the technology behind it.

I know someone who is a car nut, he has a street-legal, plated, very powerful fast kit-car now (Cobra repli-car). He's actually thinking of having it detuned - he finds it hard to drive on the street, it's so powerful that it's hard to control it. Touch that gas pedal and you are out-a-there!

I don't suppose he'd be thrilled with my idea of changing the pedal action so the mechanical leverage is reduced to 2/3rd travel? Seems like it would be easy, and easily reversed come time to sell it?

-ERD50

 

[38Chevy454]

The biggest issue with going 300, or even 200+ mph is aerodynamic drag as stated earlier. I go to Bonneville Salt Flats for Speedweek each year. Cars must be powered through the wheels, no thrust jet or rocket power at Speedweek. The highest speeds there are done on a 5 mile course, with about 3-4 miles of shutdown. Lot of cars in the 150-250 mph range, gets pretty slim above that. A true "car" type shape (traditional shape, roof, doors, etc) just has a lot of aerodynamic resistance. Due to frontal area and the drag coefficient. I think there have been 5 true car type vehicles that have gone over 300, and 1 roadster.

It has to overcome the cube of the aerodynamic resistance at double the speed, so for instance if it takes 400 hp to go 150 in a good aerodynamic car, it probably takes around 2500 hp to go 300. Not many cars with 2500 hp engines, at least ones that are street legal and not pure racing engines.

That's why the fastest land speed vehicles are the streamliners that look like long tubes, to reduce the frontal area and the aerodynamic drag as much as possible. The streamliners go in low-400's mph, and are still accelerating slightly at the end of the 5 mile course.

The achievement by Bugatti or Koenigsegg is pretty amazing. Notice that the either car is very aerodynamic shape, more like a race car than a traditional shape.

 

[eytonxav]

High speed tracks require special pavements and design criteria to support the extreme speeds. Pavement slope is critical. And tracks require a special grade of asphalt - at least in the Chicagoland area.

My point is even tracks like Texas Motor Speedway, Indy, the Ring in Germany, LeMans, etc do not have long enough straightaways to accommodate that kind of speed even from all out non-streetable race cars.

 

[Ready2Go]

Shifting into high gear at 230 MPH - that's just amazing! I'd like to take a ride in that thing.

There's a Commander Cody song from back in the day and one of the lines in the song indicates the "lines on the road just look like dots" and that was true in this video from about 150 MPH on.

"Telephone poles look like a picket fence." Always loved that song.

My 66 Chevelle goes as fast as I want to go.

 

[Ronstar]

My point is even tracks like Texas Motor Speedway, Indy, the Ring in Germany, LeMans, etc do not have long enough straightaways to accommodate that kind of speed even from all out non-streetable race cars.

Very true - it takes a while to get up to top speed - and back down again. Probably need a 5 mile long straightaway to get to 280mph and back.