On 12/05/2020 12:03, Weatherlawyer wrote:
On Sunday, 10 May 2020 22:25:27 UTC+1, John Rumm wrote:
On 10/05/2020 15:46, Weatherlawyer wrote:

You don't really believe that a mid-1930's first generation
solid block 8 cylinder 1/4 ton of cast iron was capable of even
glancing at a peak of 40mph on rural US highways, even downhill.

Capable certainly. Retired racing driver Eddie Pullen (and other
co-drivers) conducted an endurance speed run for Ford in the
Mojave desert in 1933 with a stock V8 Saloon. Covering over 33K
miles in a month. That was an average speed over 40mph, and that
included servicing, refuelling, and driver changes.


It is amazing what a lot of information can be gleaned from usenet.
Did you have this stuff lurking on your files or did you resort to
doing what the firts correspondents urged?

More a fluke of timing, I watched a video on the production of the
original ford V8 a while ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RB3z1er9Sw


Either way I am grateful.
Had you considered the average journey on any leg of the course was
somthing like 10moh faster than the average daily commute anywhere on
earth these days?

It was an endurance speed attempt round a circuit, so not surprising.

And you have not supplied fuel consumption figures. Which raises the

From memory, it was about 19 mpg... presumably US gallons - so about 24
mpg to us.

question of what the performance would do vis a vis the time taken
with tyre changes and accidents as the cars deteriorated if they had
introduced chicanes and what have you corners and hills?

It was, I presume, hardly the course of a vehicle testing station
that would be set up to test fuel figures on average road journeys
these days.

I don't think fuel efficiency was much of a consideration in the US
until the 1970's.

I would like to watch the video though. Got a link or failing that,
what fuel and oils were they using and how were the bearings and
linkages set up?

There are some clips of video of some of the various tests etc included
in the one above.

There are also some web sites that have more detail, such as:

http://theoldmotor.com/?p=148792



--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/