Fast Cars

High performance vehicles such as sports cars are driven by many because they handle well and because, let’s face it, fast cars are just plain fun to drive. Whether you want the ability to beat the rush, weaving in and out of freeway traffic or just a leisurely cruise along your favorite scenic highway, there’s nothing like the enjoyment of a sleek and fast car.

There are a number of factors that go into how fast a car will be able to travel. First and foremost is the amount of power that is produced for thrust compared to the weight of the vehicle being propelled. Obviously, the more powerful and engine, the faster a car will be, but there are other factors that affect how fast a car will be able to go.

With airplanes, the thrust to weight ratio is a very tight window that must be carefully balanced or the engine will be too weighty for the amount of power that is produced, thus becoming a decreasing power return. To make an airplane faster by increasing power output may require a bigger engine. Yet this engine may be so heavy that the speed is actually reduced. Cars however do not have to worry about weight so much, as these vehicles do not need to create lift.

Some other factors that affect a car’s ability to be fast are aerodynamics and different types of engines. Aerodynamics alone can drastically affect a fast car’s speed. The general shape of a fast car will itself have a great impact on the top speed of a car. By shaping the car body aerodynamically, air is allowed to flow more smoothly over the car’s surfaces. Instead of causing drag and wind resistance, swept back surfaces allow air to flow smoothly along the edges so that the car can move unimpeded through the air.

Spoilers are a part of some fast car designs and work with aerodynamic principals in mind, though with different purpose than forward aerodynamically shaped body design.

A spoiler ‘spoils’ the airflow over the tail end of the top of a fast car so that the car is effectively ‘pushed’ down against the ground. This allows for better handling, as well as increased aerodynamics. When a fast car hugs the road, less of its underside edges make contact with the air stream, thus decreasing drag.

The fast car craze has been around, in spirit, since the days of chariots. Ever since people have been able to propel themselves forward at great speeds, people have been trying to find ways to do it better and faster. Though many people believe that fast cars came about during the muscle car era that started in the 1960s, as early as the 1940s American youth were converting their cars into souped up fast cars.

In the 1940s, after the war, soldiers returned home and sank massive amounts of money into their automobiles. At first there were only a few chop shops and high performance car shops, but in the 1950s and 1960s, these types of businesses proliferated the country as more and more people became interested in owning their own fast sports car. Few things have changed. As long as there are people there will be a demand for fast and sleek performance vehicles.

Deon Melchior is the Editor and Publisher of Article Click. For more FREE articles for your ezine and websites visit ArticleClick.com. Article Click is a free content article directory. This means that as a publisher you may reprint the articles that are included in our site, as long as the article is unedited and the author box is included with it's live hyperlinks.