"Top Speed Isn't Important Anymore."

Top Speed isn't so important. Take that from someone who often goes at top speed in cars. Much more important is the way the car accelerates even at high speeds.

I spend a lot of time on unrestricted Autobahns and since most cars today are limited to 250 km/h anyway -- even it they could go faster --, reaching 250 km/h is difficult even under ideal conditions, because you are not alone on the road.

I rather have a car that does "only" 240 km/h but reaches that speed fast, than a car that manages 250 km/h but only after a looooong run-up. Because driving fast on a public road is constant braking and accelerating and nothing is more annoying, when you reached the top speed after a long acceleration period, then have to slow own and slowly accelerate again.
 
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I want my supercar to reach 300kmh (whatever mph it works out at), but beyond that the only purpose is to be able to brag among friends in a pub. So I'm siding with acceleration/Lambo on this one. IMO, hard acceleration is much more impressive and exciting than a high top speed, which can take ages to get to.

Still, I still want reach 300kmh in a car at least once, for my "achievement unlocked" moment :D.
 
Reading both quotes, I think they're both right. Neither state that Top Speed is actually "important".
 
Top speed is useless for anything other than e-dick measuring contests. I've driven fast cars, I've driven slow cars, and I hardly ever saw triple digits in any of them and even when I did it was barely into them. You can maybe go fast out in the middle of nowhere (eg when a friend of mine went to New Mexico, he maxed the rental out at ~110mph and just cruised at that speed for hours on end until he ran out of fuel), but in MA at least, top end simply doesn't matter. At all.

Oh, and just for shits and giggles I should mention another friend of mine who had an NA Miata and then got a c5 Corvette. He still maintains that the Miata was more fun to drive. Sure, the Corvette will absolutely destroy it in any measurable contest but it cant touch the Mazda for balance and feel. I feel that those should be fairly high in the design criteria.
 
This is especially true on a race track. Very rarely will you find a class leading car also setting the highest trap speeds. If you do, he's cheating or your rules are broke. I mean, in '09 at Abu Dhabi, Force India was setting the fastest trap speeds. They finished quite low in the order.
 
GraemeH said:
Well this is going to turn into a USA vs. Europe flame war in short order, but before it does I'll say that if a car will do 200mph that's more than enough for my enjoyment to not be inhibited. How often do you hit that speed? 0.0001% of the time you drive? The other 99.9999% of the time how it goes about getting to 200, slows down for the bits you can't do 200 around and how it goes around those bits is more important to your driving pleasure.
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Hardly, I think most Americans reading this thread are siding w the well dressed European on this one. I've already been saying this 'top speed pursuit' contest is just retarded and becoming increasingly pointless and less interesting as time goes by. You know what kind of ppl obsess over top speed figures as something that really matters?


Just be glad as an intelligent person you're not one of them
 
LeVeL said:
Top speed is useless for anything other than e-dick measuring contests. I've driven fast cars, I've driven slow cars, and I hardly ever saw triple digits in any of them and even when I did it was barely into them. You can maybe go fast out in the middle of nowhere (eg when a friend of mine went to New Mexico, he maxed the rental out at ~110mph and just cruised at that speed for hours on end until he ran out of fuel), but in MA at least, top end simply doesn't matter. At all.

Oh, and just for shits and giggles I should mention another friend of mine who had an NA Miata and then got a c5 Corvette. He still maintains that the Miata was more fun to drive. Sure, the Corvette will absolutely destroy it in any measurable contest but it cant touch the Mazda for balance and feel. I feel that those should be fairly high in the design criteria.
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I used to go 120 fairly regularly on NYC highways at 3am :)
 
I think Mr. Winkelmann isn't telling us the truth. I want so see him sell a Lamborghini that is no faster than every other car, ie limited to 250 kph. A Porsche Coxter would be faster than that. And cheaper.
So the truth is: Top speed still is important. At least for super-cars. It is what sets them apart.

Of course the next few years will see a lot of changes to the car we all know. I mean pretty much every manufacturer has an electric car in the lineup these days. But the focus on light weight and handling is just an excuse for loosing top speed because of the new technology. I guarantee you, that as soon as the first electric cars are out on the street, the top speed contest will be on again.
 
MacGuffin said:
Top Speed isn't so important. Take that from someone who often goes at top speed in cars. Much more important is the way the car accelerates even at high speeds.

I spend a lot of time on unrestricted Autobahns and since most cars today are limited to 250 km/h anyway -- even it they could go faster --, reaching 250 km/h is difficult even under ideal conditions, because you are not alone on the road.

I rather have a car that does "only" 240 km/h but reaches that speed fast, than a car that manages 250 km/h but only after a looooong run-up. Because driving fast on a public road is constant braking and accelerating and nothing is more annoying, when you reached the top speed after a long acceleration period, then have to slow own and slowly accelerate again.
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Once upon a time I had a fast motorcycle, a two stroke which had an impressive top speed considering its tiny size. (Yamaha 2 stroke = fun horsepower and more or less zero torque). A Maserati Quattroporte wanted my little bike off the road but I later actually left him behind in a motorway battle. Of course, I cheated, so I led the Maser into a heavy traffic area and he got stuck. :p

Later on I wanted a slow old motorcycle. Which, by god, is really slow. I can't go above the speed limit! So I did some stuff to it to increase the low and mid range pull, and there's only one way to describe this powerless rust bucket. It's massive fun. It doesn't go above the speed limit. But I made it reaches the speed limit in literally no time at all, making it perfect for commuting in heavy traffic. Since I'm forced to maintain the speed limit, the economy is brilliant too. Most of the time I'm just loafing around at 10% power using the torque.

The ultimate posing machine that sounds like a single cylinder version of a Mercedes AMG. I use it to educate the children on their racing mopeds the value of torque. Keep the horses for trackdays, better yet, have a different bike for unrestricted autobahns :D
 
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