When inclines were still inclines
05/19/2016
Of course, the gradient of the roads has hardly changed in the last fifty years. What were highway gradients in the sixties hardly look any different today. And mountain passes have not been made any flatter either.
Nevertheless, the modern driver hardly notices the gradients any more, the powerful torque of today's cars makes the climbs flat, and cruise control does the rest to keep the speed constant. Even downshifting is taken care of by the automatic transmission.
Of course, things used to be different. If you were driving a Citroën 2 CV or a Fiat Topolino, you quickly felt when the road was going uphill.
Downshifting was the order of the day, all the way down to first gear if necessary. And in extreme cases, it was then almost at walking pace up the road.
Only the lucky ones who owned a Jaguar E-Type, a Porsche or an Alfa Romeo 50 years ago were able to drive up steep roads at high speed. But even those had to or were allowed to change gear.
My father used to tell me the story of the Porsche 356, which conquered the Stelvio Pass with a roar at the end of the 1950s, while his Beetle had to climb the road at a much more leisurely pace.
