Performance of fast limousines and sports cars of the sixties
As boys, we used to press our noses against the side windows of the sports cars and sports sedans that were not often admired in those days in order to catch a glimpse of the speedometer. It was written there what top speed the vehicle was capable of, or at least that's what we thought. It was only later that we found out that the highest number on the speedometer did not necessarily correspond to the speeds that could be reached.
Even a two on the speedometer (for example for 200 or 220 km/h) made quite an impression on us, because not many cars we saw were really that fast. Most speedometer scales ended at 120 or 140 km/h, faster everyday cars might have had a 160 on the instrument. Only very few, however, "spoke" of 200 or more kilometers per hour, perhaps an Alfa Romeo or a Porsche.
In any case, we would have been in awe of the speedometer scale shown here. 320 km/h was an unattainable dimension for road vehicles in the 1960s - even for a Corvette of the first series, regardless of the creativity of the engine mechanics of the time. The Corvette pictured - seen at the 2011 American Live US Car Meeting - is unlikely to have ever been much above the middle of the scale (has it always been there in its current form?) in its lifetime ...
