Posted on 05/21/2012 1:11:56 PM PDT by GeorgeWashingtonsGhost
This horrifying footage serves as a reminder of the deadly potential of one of the world's fastest sports cars.
Three people died when a Ferrari 599 GTO ploughed into the side of a taxi while speeding across a city centre junction in Singapore.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Ping
GM speedometers were wildly optimistic back then - and the survivors can be proven so now by radar and lidar. Had one guy take his restored Chevelle (non-SS) out to the track, said the speedo read 150 at the end of the run but the radar and trap speed said 95.
It helps if you don’t make the entire car out of a very flammable magnesium alloy. Specifically, the same magnesium alloy that was used to make incendiary bombs in WW1 and WW2. Once ignited, it is impossible to extinguish and burns so hot that it can melt its way through battleship plate and tank hulls.
But Mercedes had to have the lightest thing around, so they constructed the entire car out of this ‘Elektron’ magnesium alloy. What could possibly go wrong?
No matter the make of the car, there is a common thrill to high speed driving, in one of the second incarnations of my aforementioned ‘63 Galaxie, I was able to obtain a 427 side oiler block ($300 from Orange Ford in Villa California at the time), unfortunately my budget wouldn’t allow for me to stuff that block full of the high speed goodies I wanted, so I had to improvise:
(1) 428 SCJ Crankshaft (3.98” stroke as opposed to factory 3.78” stroke of the 427)
(2) 428 SCJ Connecting Rods, forged steel, polished and magnafluxed and stress relieved.
(3) TRW L2240 Flattop Pistons, a standard TRW part for stroking the 427 out to 447.
(4) 1968 427 Hydraulic Cam C8AX-6250-C, 282 degrees intake duration, 296 degrees exhaust duration, 58 degrees overlap, .500 lift (or .509 w/adjustable rockers)
ANYway, with the original 406 heads polished and ported, combined with the OEM 6-bbl carburetion, that engine put out both torque AND horsepower although a realistic redline was 5200, maybe 5500 (428 crank was nodular iron as opposed to the ‘27 forged steel crank).
To sum up this long-azz story, I was working at a summer job at the Mouse House near Orlando Florida (aka Disney) and the access road from the Tragic Kingdom to U.S. 192 was pretty much empty after 1:00 am (when I got off work), and that was my ‘test track’ and the highest speed I dared take that big Ford was up around 115 and I backed off because it was an eerie feeling to see the road narrowing ahead and the white slashes turning solid at that speed, and I wasn’t about to run TOO much risk, especially since the Florida Highway Patrol was notorious for waiting for vehicles to exit that access road and merge into US 192 at ‘higher than advisable speeds’.
What great days those were.
I’d bet that the Chevelle guy put a ring & pinion set of 4.11:1 ratio or so in the rear axle, but failed to change the driven gear on his speedometer cable to match. That’s the most common reason for a speedometer to show such a huge error.
>>GM speedometers were wildly optimistic back then<<
Why y’all haters gots to be burstin’ my bubble?
I have a distinct memory of going faster than God even intended Man to go in old-school Detroit iron with a powerplant the size of Texas.
Now, you’re saying I was going 75 MPH?
(if we are in a bar, this is the pound-on-the-back “man, I am sure you were damn near 200 MPH” moment...)
Yeah, magnesium was dropped as a wheel casting material for the same reason - too damned dangerous. The Mercedes fire in '55 was certainly spectacular, but it was the engine and transmission that ripped loose and went flying through the crowd of spectators at shoulder-height that really caused the carnage.
I remember seeing the graphic pictures from that crash in a library book on auto racing when I was a child. I recall thinking that they should've stopped the race. Now I understand that so few years after WWII, the people who witnessed that crash had probably seen far worse.
Okay, you were damned near 200 mph.
And you're buying the next round. :-)
>>And you’re buying the next round. :-)<<
Hell, yes! Too bad that cop I smoked doesn’t drink... ;)
Yeah, making the trees get all blurry with a big American V8. That's an experience that few kids born today will ever be blessed with.
The motorcyclist was hit also. He had spinal injuries.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouegmRIvoeQ&feature=related
There are many links to this story on youtube.
Past about 100 mph every 20 mph is another skill level. The reason professionals practice is because they have to. Any dumbass with a heavy foot can make a car like that go at its designed limit but he can't drive it, and he's kidding himself and everyone around him if he thinks that hanging onto the steering wheel and blasting is driving.
Off my soapbox. And yes, I do like to drive.
Yep.
Intersections are death traps. Enter with extreme caution.
Nope. The car was all original (his mother had bought it originally) and he’d not modified it at all.
His wasn’t the only GM (or even domestic) classic muscle at the track that day reading quite a bit high.
You do know that video of that crash survived, right? It’s even worse than the still pictures.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEk85gKJN6k&feature=related <— warning, VERY graphic
It wasn’t just the debris itself that caused the casualties - the burning magnesium *splashed* when the fuel exploded, showering a sort of super-napalm on people that could not be extinguished. As many as were killed by the hood-guillotine and the engine/front axle’s assault were killed and maimed by the burning magnesium.
Came around a corner and there was a Semi Trailer doing about 50. I still remember the reflective yellow and black sticker across the back of the Trailer.
Zipped around it, still don't know how, and that was the last time I ever went over 100 MPH in any car. I was very lucky that night. I do miss my little Red Porsche though.
Should also be mentioned that it has been said by more than a few that if Mercedes hadn’t gone for lightness uber alles it might have been more sturdy and might not have disintegrated like that on impact. Further, if they’d actually gotten real brakes like Jaguar did, the accident probably wouldn’t have happened at all. Dunlop had offered to sell them to Mercedes, and Mercedes said no.
“I just sent it to some younger friends of mine who like to race on the streets.”
I had a 40 coupe in 1954 that went 129 in the quarter that I street raced 7 nights a week!!!
If it got real serious I drug out the 32 fuel roadster on the trailer that held the D roadster record in SCTA in 1954.
IF YOU DON’T INTEND TO WIN DON’T RACE!!!!!!
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