> I think what the speedometer is capable of displaying, what the car is actually capable of reaching, and what the governor should be set to are 3 separate ite

> I think what the speedometer is capable of displaying, what the car is actually capable of reaching, and what the governor should be set to are 3 separate items. I agree, but I think there was at one point more coherency between those 3 items and it made more sense to just have the speedos go up to 155 or thereabouts, because that was basically the highest speed that any reasonably consumer-accessible car would reach (so not the ones tuned up to go really fast, but maybe something like a muscle car which could on a good day maybe get close to those numbers.) These days, you're right. No sane manufacturer is going to overprovision their cars to be able to do 2x the speed limit of their target market without an expectation that the car will be extremely niche if they do.