Old is Gold?

With the technologically advanced ultra modern cars, one might think that cars today are much better than their old blue collar counterparts of the 80's. The fact is that they are. The newer cars are stunning to look at, more aerodynamic, more fuel efficient, more refined, smoother, safer, more environment friendly and much faster! Wait did I say faster? Well let's compare shall we? and find out whether the modern day enginerring wonders are any faster than their old grand dads.

Take a car like the Volks Wagon Golf. One would expect that a 2007 Golf would easily pummel an old 80's Golf in a drag race. But no! it's the old guy that's faster. This is because, the 80's were a period of dreams, engineers had full freedom, the engines were allowed to drink as much fuel as they wanted to and burn it in the way they wanted to. But not today. Today, due to very stringent regulations on environment friendliness and stres on fuel efficiency, the engineers have to work out some sort of a compromise. All you are left with is this ultra smooth mellowed down engine.

Take the examples of the supercars. The Ferrari F-40 of the 1980's with a 3.0 liter engine can out accelerate a 6.0 liter Ferrari F-60 Enzo of today, by hitting 0 - 96 km/hr in 3.2 secs!. A Jaguar XJ220 of the 80's with a 3.0 liter engine could dessimate a 7.0 liter Pagani Zonda in a drag race!. And not to mention, the king! The McLaren F1 which could leave all these modern supercars panting after 350 km/hr and go on to a whooping 380 km/hr!. The only one to challenge it now is the new Koenigsegg CCX. You will say, "Wait! what about the Bugatti Veyron?". Yes but it's just an engineering experiment. They are not going to put it into production. Too bad!

What about Formula-1 cars? Come on! the monsters that Schumacher and co drive should be much faster than the old ones driven by Allain Prost and gang! right? Wrong! You see during the olden days, F-1 didn't have these many rules restricting the engineers from pushing the car to it's limits. They could use side skirts which prevented the turbulent air from getting underneath the body, they could use whatever technology they wanted on the engine to make them powerful. They could use active suspension, which ensured that the car stays at the same level from the ground no matter what. All these were banned one by one. The olden day's F-1 engine could produce up-to 1200 BHP!, compared to the 800's that today's F-1 cars produce.

So you see, the cars of the olden days seems to be more powerful and faster than today's.

What about other forms of transport? Which (was)is the fastest passenger aeroplane ever? The Concorde!, when was it built? 1969, not today. Which is the fastest ever (fighter) aeroplane in the world? The SR - 71 Black Bird, which could do more than 3900 km/hr(Mach 3.2) !, when was it built? 1966, not today!

These bruts of the olden days were a legend, a benchmark, which very few modern day rivals can dream to equal. I don't know then what we mean by pushing the limits! phew!