7 ms·

The autobahn is a glorious thing. When I lived in Germany I bought a Honda Civic hatchback, 1.6L, 5 speed manual through AAFES car sales (cars sales to US milit

• Moru 7y ago
  Did it really have mph on the speedometer?
  • filoleg 7y ago
    Considering it was a civic hatch (which is a model that isn’t sold in the US iirc), i bet it was in kmh and the parent just conerted it to mph for the HN audience.
    • marktangotango 7y ago
      I assumed it was a US market car since it was sold through AAFES to US service members. It was mph and kph though. And there were a fair numbere in the US, I haven’t seen any newish ones lately though.
  • teh_klev 7y ago
    European cars, or those built for the European market generally have both MPH and KPH on their speedometers. My '92 imported (from Japan) Legacy Turbo Estate (man I loved that machine) had both sets of speeds.
    • ahartmetz 7y ago
      Only UK models have both AFAIK. Continental European cars have km/h only.
      • teh_klev 7y ago
        I've seen plenty of Golf's and Mercs (left hand drive, built in continental Europe) with both.
        • blattimwind 7y ago
          Not standard.
        • ilikehurdles 7y ago
          I've seen it on German cars in the US, but not in Germany.
    • extropy 7y ago
      Probably depends on the manufacurer. From last ~10 or so rental cars in EU can't remeber last time I saw one with mph on the dial.
• mring33621 7y ago
  I believe it. In the mid-90's, my brother and I took our Mom's Mazda 323 hatchback up to 130 MPH on a US interstate.
• esaym 7y ago
  >Is that safe? Reminds me of a story a step dad told me... He was in Europe while in the military.I guess sometime in the 60's. It was late at night and him and his buddy were in one of those "tiny European" cars and not sober at all. Said they were doing nearly 100mph (as fast as it could go) and coming around a blind corner when they suddenly saw a police road block in the middle of the road. Unable to stop quickly enough, they lost control and ended up fish tailing off the road and out into a field. Unharmed thankfully. The police officers jogged over to them and asked if they were OK and apologized for the road block before telling them to stay safe and have a good night. There was no posted speed limit and drinking and driving was the norm apparently.
  • wolfi1 7y ago
    alcohol limits were introduced in the 60s so that story sounds plausible
    • bhaak 7y ago
      Wow. I didn't know about the alcohol limits. But what is even more amazing, safety belts were not standard back then and mandatory wearing of seat belts was only introduced in the 1970s. So OP's narrator probably survived that accident with out any seat belts on.
      • Scoundreller 7y ago
        It wasn’t long ago in Croatia where the driver yelled at me NOT to put my seatbelt. It was only required for driver and forward passenger.
    • acqq 7y ago
      > sounds plausible Additionally, as far as I understand, the U.S. military personnel has a special legal status almost anywhere outside of the U.S.
      • wolfi1 7y ago
        In Germany at the time for sure as legally Germany was an occupied territory but if the policemen would have thought it was illegal they would have handed them over to the MPs
• u801e 7y ago
  > 120 [mph] in a Honda? Is that safe? All I know is it felt rock steady, I have driven my Honda Odyssey a number of times between 105 to 110 mph without any issues. But it doesn't have sufficient power to get to 120 mph in a reasonable distance.
• wolfspider 7y ago
  Owned a 13-sec motor swapped CRX that could do 110 in 3rd gear- so yes, I believe you. It was N/A and had a B18A. I’m guessing you had a B16 ;)
  • at-fates-hands 7y ago
    It's interesting to hear my mechanic friends talk about much heavier newer cars are now with all the safety features and reinforced doors and quarter panels. One of my buddies held onto his old souped up CRX for years until the DMV forced him to get a newer car. He said the same thing. Rock solid at high speeds and still managed 35-40 mpg on a regular basis.
• maxxxxx 7y ago
  "People here are amazed when I tell that story, 120 in a Honda? Is that safe?" Just watch out for the crummy all season tires cars in the US have. I don't trust those. Otherwise no problem.
  • pdonis 7y ago
    > the crummy all season tires cars in the US have They're fine for the allowed speeds on US highways. Obviously if you're going to be driving at high autobahn speeds you need tires that are rated for those speeds. (Although I've never seen a tire in the US that wasn't rated for at least 110 mph, which would be fine for a lot of autobahns given the 80 mph typical speed mentioned in the article.)
• RaceWon 7y ago
  > 120 in a Honda? Is that safe The real problem would occur if you had to stop or slow down as quickly as a car that actually had real brakes, like say an AMG. But hey... it would be HUGELY hypocritical of me to say that you should Not have done that.
  • badpun 7y ago
    Well, everything is relative - there are a lot of situations where the AMG brakes are not strong enough as well and you crash into someone anyway.
  • philjohn 7y ago
    Plus tyres are typically rated up to a defined speed ...
    • lagadu 7y ago
      Indeed but good tyres are rated to speeds in excess of 300km/h which is supercar territory. Hell, my fiesta came from the factory with speed rating Y: 300km/h
  • willyt 7y ago
    I never understood how ‘good brakes’ make a difference as every car has brakes powerful enough to lock the wheels. Why isn’t it the ratio of the mass of the car to the size of the contact patch for the tires that is the overriding factor?
    • wjnc 7y ago
      Anti lock braking and wheel surface contact will make big differences between cars in braking behavior. Those AMG not only have better brakes, with possibly better software controlling ABS, but also wider tires. With formulas [1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braking_distance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braking_distance
      • lagadu 7y ago
• S_A_P 7y ago
  When you have a vehicle capable of 3 digit speed you would be surprised how “planted” it feels at speed. If the car you drive feels unsafe at speed you should probably slow down.
• bhaak 7y ago
  > People here are amazed when I tell that story, 120 in a Honda? It took me a moment to get why that's supposed to be such a feat. But it's miles-per-hour. So you were doing ~190 km/h. Yeah, that's about the top speed I would expect from such a car. The few times when I was doing that speed in a Mitsubishi, I didn't have a problem with steadyness but I had the feeling the car was being lifted up due to the air currents. Quite a strange feeling becoming airborne in a non flying vehicle.
  • avocado111 7y ago
    > I had the feeling the car was being lifted up due to the air currents. Yup. It is a bit similar as in a plane wing: In a wing, there is an airflow below the wing, and another airflow above the wing. The wing is curved so that the air flowing above needs to travel a longer path, therefore it travels faster. Faster travel translates into lower pressure, therefore there is a pressure differential which lifts the wing up. This is similar for a car, which is curved as well. Only, because the bottom side of the car is relatively close to the ground, there is less airflow which increases the pressure differential upwards. This aerodynamic feature is also the reason why racing cars have features which cause that the airstream presses them into the ground. Without that, it would be easy to lose control.
• Theodores 7y ago
  Most speed tests on TV shows are on airfields or dedicated motor racing circuits with little in the way of elevation changes. Motorways (autobahn) are different. In the TV show the runway runs out. The top speed is more to do with the length of the runway than the performance of the car. I used to drive up to Scotland in a V6 Renault Espace. Due to crazy boss in the passenger seat sticking to the speed limit was not acceptable. We had lots of expensive tech gear in the back in very heavy flight cases. At two in the morning, with walls of ice and snow either side of the road, in something that had the aerodynamics of a bus the speedometer was stuck at 150 mph, mile after mile. Even allowing for a 10% error in the speedometer reading that was still faster than what a sane person who cared about holding onto their license would ever wish to go at in the UK. Like your Honda, if I tell this story people question me as if I am bumping up the numbers a bit. "Are you sure?" "Renault Espace?" But yes, a speedometer speed of 150 mph (not to be confused with actual speed or kilometers) was definitely achievable, not for a few brief seconds but for tens of miles on the big downhill in to Scotland. 30 miles of empty road is different to a 3 kilometer runway and, if there is added gravity assistance, there is a much higher terminal velocity that can be reached than anything TV shows elude to. This is the bit people don't get. Almost everything in the company fleet had a V6 engine. As well as buying cars tax efficiently the boss liked his booze so there were practical reasons why I was the idiot at the wheel. The Celica GT4 was good for 150 mph everywhere, no hills or suspicious speed claims needed. The true surprise was the one lame car, a Ford Escort diesel. This pre-dated the Ford Focus and the engine didn't have performance to boast about. Yet that would get a speedometer 140 mph no problems, plus the handling was great. My last drive was when I quit that job and needed to move my stuff. I had a mere-mortals car hired for the day with flat spot tyres, play in the steering and lots of rattling things. It didn't even start first time. That wandered across the road a bit and did not feel safe. After that I decided that normal driving was intolerably dull and, since I had not got caught or killed, quit driving for good. I made the humble bicycle my thing. On the bike I can go at max speed and effort everywhere, pulse fully quickened, at the limits of tyre adhesion and braking ability, getting that thrill of speed but doing no more than 20 mph or so. I don't have to kill my soul 'sitting in traffic' or inching towards traffic lights that go red as I get there. I just prefer continual movement and not being strapped into a tin box. I still have not driven thus far this century. I am now old enough to not recommend driving idiot style. But then there are contradictions in the cult of the car. Performance sells cars but that performance is only enjoyed by proxy through TV shows, video games, motorsport and films. My friends who have driven nearly every day this century have not pushed it for real. Yet they have cars as bit as fast as what I was driving two decades ago. "All the gear but no idea" has been normalised.
• Scoundreller 7y ago
  > Somewhere there’s Honda with a German owners manual in the US. The strangest thing for a new US owner would be if it was diesel.
• lazyjones 7y ago
  > 120 in a Honda? Is that safe? It's just as safe as 80 mph, you will be very dead in either case if you wrap it around a tree.
• rv-de 7y ago
  > Then I’d have slow down, move over, let them pass then try again. That is neither required nor recommended and potentially dangerous. The correct protocol is to ignore pushy cars behind you and stick to your overtaking maneuver. But it is also questionable to even engage in overtaking if the car on the middle lane is so fast that overtaking takes such a long time.