• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Old cars and 100 mph

Share this page

prb51

prb51

Luke Skywalker
Country flag
Offline
We all love our machines for dif reasons but I love motoring 'at speed' in my TR3 for the experience the car provides.
I drove my cousins 96 vette at 100 mph plus and it was a great ride and a fine machine but anyone could get behind the wheel and do that without concern...the thing drives itself (and nicely too).
Today I had the smallmouth up to 100 mph on a local divided state road, at least I think I did, the speedo was bouncing between 90 mph and 'made in England'. The tach that is accurate and does not bounce was steady at 5200 rpm, so close enough for hand grenades.
Anyway, what a great drive hunched behind the one brooklands with the tonneau zipped up....vibrations, wind, valve clatter, exhaust note, a slight hot oil smell...passing modern cars like they were standing still (not many and plenty of long visibility)...the car kind of hops before it takes a set in a sweeping turn but sticks...
Lift the loud pedal foot and the burble of the exhaust was just right...makes me feel a kid again with my first LBC (AH 100-6).
Makes all of the wrenching worthwhile and then some.
You just can't get that old world motoring feeling in our new machines.
So everyone out there working/completing their cars I wish you great luck and great drives.
 
Not an LBC story, but my very first car was a 1963 Ford Galaxie 500 with a big 390 V8. Of course all young lads wanna see what they can do so I got the old Ford on the open road. Easily got to 100 and seemed to have lots of pedal left. As i hit 110, I felt somthing touch my head. It was the entire roof of the car sucking down from some weird pressure thing happening. I slowed down and pushed the roof back up with a giant popping sound. the roof had permanant warping from that point on. Oh to be young.....
 
I know just what you mean. When I had my GT6 or Sptfire up to speed on the highway or when I was really buzzing around on back roads it was great. I always told people the best way I could describe it was that it's so different from driving a modern car, You didn't feel insulated from the car, you knew you were operating a machine, you really felt like the whole car was alive around you.
 
When I was dating my now wife, I rode a heavily modified,
tricked out, Yamaha rice beater. My date was game for
a ride and I took her out on a little used four lane.

After we returned alive and I asked if she had ever
ridden at 135 mph before, she gave me that "cold stare"
only a Brit can pull off.

Ah, the things we do in our youth!

d
 
I took my Firebird Formula up well over 100 several times on open roads and I have been in several other fast cars at high speeds. But nothing compares to going 75 mph in the Triumph. It really is a different experience. I like the simplicity of these cars. No bells ans whistles, just the essentials of driving. A lot of muscle car guys I know just don't get it.

Great stories. I like the Galaxie story. My neighbor up the road has a restored 63 and I am sure he would appreciate that one!
 
Sorry, but I can't jump on this bandwagon, guys. It's just too dangerous. I must add that I'm in the safety business, and I'm a volunteer for a local rescue squad. This perspective provides one with a very clear viewpoint on reckless driving and excessive speeds.

Not to sink anyone's boat here, but I can't help but wonder at the logic behind driving at excessive speeds on public roads in antique/old vehicles. Holy cow, what were you guys thinking when you did it? :shocked:

Intrinsically dangerous. If you're gonna drive like that, please take the car to a private track somewhere.

Regardless of the "remoteness" of the roads, today's public byways are just too crowded and congested for anyone to drive at 100 MPH ++, ESPECIALLY in an old car! Regardless of how fast "everyone else" is driving, I'm sure your chances of going home to your family are greatly enhanced by observing the speed limit and traffic laws.

Sorry for the rant, but what if you have a mechanical failure (or a heart attack!) in your 30+ year old car and plow into someone's wife, kid or dog?

Think about it, please be careful . . . :nonono:
 
Back in college, there was a stretch of untraveled back road that paralleled the interstate so what better place to try and get the AH3000 up to 100. Top down, my roommate calling me crazy but we barely hit it before running out of nerve and road. With the TR6, it's easy to hit 100.......on the speedometer anyway :smirk: ..... I really need to get that fixed!

Fast forward to today and I have a friend who always has fast expensive cars. During the 80's it was a Porsche of various makes and models, then as he aged he switched to Mercedes and now in his 60's it's a Bentley Continental GTC. All beautiful cars but you can never tell if he's going 55 mph or 120 mph. Fast but boring.
 
My knees turn to goo at 80 MPH now, no matter WHAT car I'm in. :smirk:


...and I feel like a traffic cone when on the Interstate. Tell it to the REST of the drivers out there, Mark.
 
I have driven my Triumphs as fast as anyone and loved the thrill. Only a month or so ago I had our TR6 accelerating strong past 110mph when I realized how fast we were going and backed off. I have gone through those roadside speed indicators many times and know that my spedo is quite accurate.

Funny this subject came up. Yesterday I was at a crash scene demonstration. It was held at the high school where my wife works and my son was one of the firemen (P Smith)in the photos. This was a recreation of an actual crash with two fatalities caused by a drunk driver.

The thing is that even though I have lost many friends due to car crashes and have had a couple myself I tend to forget this part of it.

I drove home much different than I drove to the demonstration.
 
If I ever plow into someones dog while I'm driving I pray that it will be the neighbors barking wiener dog whose effect on world peace and the environment rival those of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad captaining the Exxon Valdez.
 
In college, I was driving my 65 Rambler Marlin home from a friend's and found myself on a brand new stretch of expressway all by myself........smooth, new, deserted road...nudged it to 110 and I said thanks to the angels and drove 55 the rest of the way home....
 
Tom,
Drunk drivers in no way equate to someone running their Triumph up to 100 MPH.

Mark,
I doubt that many people will be driving their Triumphs at 100 MPH on a crowded road. It's physically impossible. On the other hand in my daily drive I regularily hit 80 MPH followed closely by a line of drivers impatiently waiting to pass me.
"What were you guys thinking?" Concentrating intensely on driving. Cell phone useage on public byways is intrinsically dangerous. Some guy on a deserted stretch of highway running his Triumph up to 100 MPH pales in comparison.
 
When I was young single and bullet proof. I drove at excessive speeds most of the time. Then I became a policeman. In those days there were no EMS folks so we were usually the first responders to all of the accidents. Sobering experience I might add. Slowed me down considerably. Though I have hit 100 to 115 in high speed chases, I had the red bubble gum machine and the siren with me on those chases.
All that being said I still love the thrill of sticking my foot in it when I take off! I like head snapping acceleration. Hi speed is just not the same as being under high acceleration.

My thoughts, Tinkerman
 
vagt6 said:
Sorry, but I can't jump on this bandwagon, guys. It's just too dangerous.
Click to expand...

Sometimes, a little bit of danger is okay. Sometimes, you just have to find out where your limits are.

And so long as there are cars and people who drive them, your wife, kids, and dog are all vulnerable, regardless of the speed.
 
Like many of us, I am sure, I have done my share -- perhaps more than my share -- of illegally fast driving on little-used public roadways. Like all of us who have done this, I found the experience thrilling.

That was then, and now I'm 58 years-old. I don't think the current TR3 will ever see that sort of driving with me behind the wheel. That, of course, is too bad because I've never had one before with a NEW suspension and a NEW motor. But I do believe I have "matured" to the point where I won't need to "see what this baby can do."

Or... The car may seduce me yet. Only time will tell.
 
I have driven my tr3 above a hundred a couple of times, but now when I go out on the county highways at say 70 or 80 I feel like I pushing it, but I really enjoy doing it for the same reasons prb51 mentioned. I remember a friend of mine came back from overseas in the early seventies when I was restoring my first tr3 and he had to get an English sports car. When we were in high school together, he had a 56 chev stock V8 and I had a 54 Ford with a Tbird 292. He paid 250.00 for the chev and it was one owner 2d hard top. Anyways for you West coasters, he bought a 1962 AH 3000 with OD for 2000.00 and one night we took Interstate 5 from Seattle to Olympia going down the big hill into Nisqually on the new freeway with the speedo pinned. I want to say this guy is a great driver and an idiot, and in those days people drove crazier. Anyway what happened is when we hit the bottom of the hill the plastic side windows blow out just like in Goldfinger. It was 1:30 am and he wanted to go look for them.
 
Believe me, I believe in safe driving but thought the written experience would suffer if I started with a safety diatribe (road conditions, visibility, traffic density, local karma etc).
When the conditions are right these LBC's were/are designed for speed and competition (sidescreens) and do just fine at speed.
BTW, the local traffic often buzzes along at 85 on the local inter and the state road I was on was posted 65 so it's not much of a reach for short duration.
When I pulled over to the crossover the little TR dropped to a 500 rpm tick over without a burp...wonderful machine.
 
I had my dead stock low port 90 BHP TR-2 with Brooklands screens up to 110 MPH (that's 5500 RPM) with no trouble on the track (although taking that car on the track in the first place was probably lacking in good sense).

MY modified TR-3A would do that up a hill...:smile:
 
Back
Top