Practically Classics Forum

Can anyone explain by what criteria Bluebird CN7 is described as "the fastest "real" car ever on Page 8 of the July edition?

Is this because it is wheel driven in contrast to later land speed record vehicles which have been powered by jet or rocket engines and therefore don't count as "real cars"? Apart from the point that gas turbine record cars receive a significant boost from the thrust of their exhaust gasses, Bluebird's land speed record of 403.13 mph has since been exceeded by three internal combustion engine powered cars:

Mickey Thompson's Challenger at 406.60 mph (not an official record as the car broke on the return run)
Bob Summer's Goldenrod at 409.27 mph
Al Teague's Speed o Motive at 409.98 mph

OK all of these are average speeds over the flying mile so it may be possible that Bluebird reached a higher peak speed at one point than these others but I find it hard to believe that it at any time reached a higher peak speed than Don Vesco's Turbinator (another gas turbine powered car) that set a land speed record at 458.44 mph in 2001.

Does someone at PC need to do more research?

the fastest real car is a white transit van ..

Astramax Diesel in grey primer with a passenger door in contrasting yellow I'd have said. Not forgetting the ladder flap in the back of the roof; that must be brush painted badly in red primer and glued shut.
I'd take on even a Transit if I had an Astramax to do the job.

problems with speed these days are, traffic jams that slow even the fastest van to a crawl & speed cameras

Perhaps those are commercials rather than cars. My vote is for the Skoda Octavia!

i used to drive one of those as a taxi driver... almost as quick as a white van...

Moved to "Feedback Arena"

Eric, I think the answer to your last point is "yes"....

Page 7 of the September edition. Here we go again………

If a thrust-powered Land Speed Record car is “nothing more than an aircraft without wings” Danny then why did it take until 1997 for someone to achieve a supersonic Land Speed Record when supersonic flight has been around since the 1940s? The answer is that it is technically far more difficult to build a successful supersonic car than a supersonic aircraft and the design of Thrust SSC broke new ground in the science of aerodynamics.

“Ever since then jet power has ruled”. Not so. If we are talking about thrust-powered LSR cars then what about The Blue Flame which established a record in 1970 powered by a rocket, not a jet, engine? But this statement seems to suggest a broader complete ignorance of the whole sport of land speed record breaking in which several meetings continue to be held each year with large numbers of vehicles competing in different classes according to type of powerplant, fuel, body configuration, etc. The arrival of thrust powered cars just added another class and did not, therefore, kill off the sport, it added to it.

A recent article on parking tickets may hold an answer to the speeding fine problem!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28616846

European vehicles can be driven on UK roads for six months before being registered, with any parking offences committed in this period not recorded.

UK councils say tens of thousands of pounds in unpaid fines are lost each month as car owners cannot be traced.

So would it also apply to speeding fines?

ive heard that there is an exchange of information between governments for speeding.... i wont try test this out for you..