Ever Drive a Slow Car That Scared You?

I felt we should had this as some folks touched on this in the other topic.

For me:  A friend's 1972 Maverick with a knackered front end and shot steering, we were coming back from the lake and I went thought a dip at 62 mph. the front tires chirped and the car snapped 3 feet to right. That made the rest of the drive a 55 mph wite knuckle ride.

We also mentioned bikes: I was riding a CB175 with Dunlop KR73 race tires on it (the tires are literally v shaped) I'd draft a semi and sling shot up to 82 mph at which point the tiny 1/4" wide contact patch locked into the rain grooves and made the bike extremely twitchy to the point of my wrestling back into the right lane.................it was 10 seconds of anxiety I don't care to ever repeat. It was scarier than the 130mph tank slapper I did at Riverside.

This. 

We bought it non running and thought it would make a great shop runabout.  We were very mistaken

Any vehicle my middle sister and her late husband ever owned. Not one of them was still roadworthy within 6 months of entering their ownership.

A friend's VW Rabbit Diesel. 0-60 in 22.9 seconds, when new, which is actually longer than its quarter mile time. Meaning it finishes a quarter mile at less than 60mph, flat out. Entering a freeway was a dance with death every time. He loved that thing, and I never could figure out why. It was terrifying to drive, just horrifically slow.

If you're in basically anything slower than an e46 m3 at a bmwcca or porchse club hpde at a fast track like road America in the intermediate run group...

A GC 2.5RS.

It drove really well, actually, until I hit an interchange at about 5mph too fast.  (The big curving bridge that I-71N takes over I-480 in Cleveland)  GTI started pushing the Subaru sideways.

Can't slow down.

Don't dare speed up, either.

I'm doing about 65mph around a long sweeping slightly downhill righthand arc, with a small amount of left steering lock, and the most precise throttle control I have ever mustered, before or since, balancing the amount the Subaru was pulling vs. the GTI trying to push it sideways, allowing the rig to slow itself down but very, very gradually.  I started giggling uncontrollably after I was off the bridge and the road straightened out.

1971 MG Midget that was slow until I stuffed in a Fiat 1600 with a 5 speed. That car had no business going 100 mph but was way to easy to get there. 

I've driven a 42 rwhp Land Rover with the aerodynamics of a barn across a good portion of the US, including across the Colorado passes. It wasn't scary, but I was passed by every car in the country twice as I had the hand throttle set at 55.

What was scary was when my GTX had a distributor problem and would occasionally fall flat on its face when you entered an intersection. A car suddenly becoming slow, that's the problem.

My '94 Toyota pickup. I'm still getting it sorted and don't fully trust it when I test drive it.  This is compounded by seeing how little protection it has even compared to my '85 Corvette. It has some of the thinnest sheet metal and nothing resembling a "crumple zone" or impact bar or "safety feature." Really its best safety feature is its inability to get up to highway speeds in any reasonable amount of time, deterring using it on roads faster than 45 mph.

Learned to drive on a 1981 Datsun 210 that had about 50 hp when new, had a worn out suspension, and the chassis had taken a few hits. That one made every on-ramp an adventure.

More recently, driving a 2.3 Ranger over the Blue Ridge Mountains with a bunch of engine parts in the back, in light snow, on well-worn tires was a bit interesting.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Hahahah I got a 26 minute time on a 4 minute stage, in a GTX,  that just up and quit at WOT... coasted to a stop while it said "nope" and when our time was well and truly berked, it fired right up and finished the rest of the rally without temper tantrum. I guess it figured it hosed us good enough!

My old E30 blew a brake line after an AutoX event 2+ hours from home. Call a tow truck? berkeley no, I was young, dumb and cheap. I drove that home using engine braking and a very marginal handbrake.

Same car maybe 6 months later, the shift linkage broke a similar distance from home. Stuck in 3rd gear, 5k+ rpms to do 80kph (50mph) on the highway all the way home... with a straight pipe exhaust and no stereo.

I had a '79 300D (80 hp of diesel glory)  that always made one particular onramp to 101 very exciting. It was a really short, uphill right turn that I could maybe hit 35 mph by the time I merged with 65+ traffic. "Luckily" it was on my way to college so I got to experience it frequently.

In reply to MadScientistMatt :

I took my driver's test in a 1981 Datsun 210! It was my brother's car. It had an automatic. I later drove it to Disney World with him in the passenger seat. I started merging on the interstate and pressed the accelerator down a little bit. The engine rpm went from 2400? to whatever the redline was when it downshifted. I let off the accelerator in horror.  My brother said, "yeah, I meant to tell you it doesn't like doing that."

I also learned to drive in a diesel International Scout Traveler. It featured a Nissan SD-33 six that displaced 198 cubic inches and made 81 hp. To withstand this engine, IH chose to use a Torqueflight 727. I don't know what rear axle ratio it had, but it would reach 80mph only going downhill.  Published 0-60 time was 25 seconds. It also weighed 5500pounds. It taught me one thing about driving. It's not what you drive, it's how you drive it. I learned how to conserve momentum, the art of slingshot passing, and how to read and exploit traffic for personal gain.

A friends Jeep CJ that he just spent a bunch of time building in my shop. He was so proud that it was whole again and told me to take a drive in it. I left it parked on the side of the road two houses down the street and walked back. ZERO return to center on bias-ply 36" Swampers. I told him that he really needed an alignment.

When I first got the Samurai, it was on 33" tires with stock gears. It was painfully slow in top speed and acceleration. The entrance to my neighborhood is on 4 lane road with a 60 mph speed limit. Sometimes I had to sit there a while to get a big enough hole in traffic to keep people from running over me. Throttle on the floor would get you 0-60 in about 30 seconds. Then you would shift into 5th and it would slow down. A gear change helped a lot, but not as much as going back to stock size tires and stock gears. 

RPM limited to 90mph, camber positive or negative depending on where you are in corner, tires 155 front and rear when I drove it the first time. Breaks the tires loose when the cam comes in and its still only doing 27mph in second gear. Love it though. 

Toyman01 + Sized and said:

When I first got the Samurai, it was on 33" tires with stock gears. It was painfully slow in top speed and acceleration. The entrance to my neighborhood is on 4 lane road with a 60 mph speed limit. Sometimes I had to sit there a while to get a big enough hole in traffic to keep people from running over me. Throttle on the floor would get you 0-60 in about 30 seconds. Then you would shift into 5th and it would slow down. A gear change helped a lot, but not as much as going back to stock size tires and stock gears. 

We had an SJ410 as a shop truck when they were sold in Canada, early 80s.  The only thing it could beat in the stoplight drags was an LJ80.  The 413 was a rocket.  Then, a whole 1600cc! Super duty.

In reply to wearymicrobe :

That car is far to dangerous.............I'll take it off your hands, you know as a life saving gesture.

My son bought a well used S-10 and asked me to drive it to diag a noise in the front end. I  was in a hurry, so instead of jacking it up and shaking the front end down, we jumped in and took off. Hands at 10 and  2 took on a whole new meaning because that's how far you had to turn it to get it to react. Everything was worn out.  

My C10 when I picked it up at the inlaws. No rear brakes, wiring that was sketchy at best, no seatbelts and a cab that was smaller inside than most modern "mini" trucks. I had 3 good forward gears, dry rotted tires and no jack or spare. 3 days and 1800 loooooong miles later it made the drive home effortlessly.

My ladies Smart Car. The car was in decent shape itself, but I felt less in that death trap than I did on a motorcycle. 

1970 beetle with a stock dual port. 4 spd. Topped out was 50mph. Got on the interstate, I cranked it to 55 and it sounded like it was going to consplode. Hardly any fuel in the front tank. Every semi truck passed us and it was a struggle to keep the front end on the road. Also, 4 wheel drum brakes. Made for a hilarious first stop of the morning on a cold day. 

A 1929 Willys-Knight with poorly adjusted mechanical brakes.

Mom drives a Mazda 3 2.5 and has for many years. It's pretty peppy. She's very accustomed to how much power it has. We were on a road trip and she was in the driver's seat of my weighted down XJ at high elevation somewhere between Las Vegas and Reno climbing a slight incline. She decided to pass a semi that was going 10 under. She downshifted to 4th and floored it. After about 30 seconds of attempting to pass the semi a car crested the hill coming down at us. That pass took about 45-60 seconds and it felt like the oncoming car was going to head on us. I'm sure there was more room than it felt, but I was full pucker. Next time I might recommend 3rd gear for passing. 

In reply to Junghole :

That surprises me. I daily drove a 1974 Standard with a stock 1600DP engine. It cruised(loudly) at 80mph on the interstate just fine. The brakes I could never get quite adjusted evenly left to right but they were plenty to stop a light car in town.