Talking with some Chevy boys this evening who had to haul a trailer from Detroit to San Diego earlier this month but got caught up in the frozen craziness going on in the plains states. They mentioned something about 10 miles in 3 hours and an inch of ice on the road. And when you're hauling a trailer, you can't exactly make that time up. So we got to thinking, what was our worst?
Oh yeah, heading from Thousand Oaks to Sonoma County in my best friend's 1968 Toyota Corona. One of its big problems was the fact that a decade earlier, leaded fuel had been outlawed. Another was hills. Still, another was that when new the puny engine spat out 90 (gross) horsepower. Nearly 30 years later, that figure was probably closer to 60 hp, if not much less. Therefor our top speed was limited. Some might say severely limited. Others might say that 50 mph downhill is fine. I would routinely make the 453 mile drive in the first generation Lieberwagon ('85 Pontiac Parisienne Safari station wagon) in a about 5 hours. In the Corona, double that. Then add 8.
You math whizzes are probably thinking to yourselves, "Wait a minute — even if they were only moving at 45 mph, that would only have taken 'em 10 hours." Right, the other 8 were spent overheating. It's one of two times I've ever seen my best friend get angry. The other involved unwanted pregnancy. Lots of roof punching. Trust me, it was bad. You?