100 miles per hour

During the past week, a friend I graduated college with in the middle '60s, regaled me with tales of doing 100 miles per hour in another friend's '55 Ford convertible.
The college was nearby Houghton College (“HO-tin;” as in “oh,” not “how” or “who”), which I've never regretted attending.
The car may have been a '56. My memory of it is fibrous, since what I remember is a black two-door sedan. —The '55 and '56 are similar.
Whatever; it was a 292 cubic-inch V8 engine, the Y-Block introduced by Ford in the 1954 model-year.
“Y-Block” because the iron block-casting extended down alongside the crankshaft bearings, making it look like a “Y.”
It had a three-speed standard transmission with Overdrive, rendering in effect six speeds.
My friend mentioned the car still had a little acceleration left after it hit 100.
Whether it actually hit a hundred is questionable, although it probably did.
It probably topped out at 110 on the speedometer, but speedometers were notoriously optimistic at that time.
The car's owner was also a student at the college.
The fastest I've ever done is 120; 120 on the speedometer.
—Once was while a student at that college, driving a friend's 1964 Plymouth with 383 four-speed.
He had got it to replace his 300G Chrysler; 413 with a TorqueFlite and ram manifolds.
Two four-barrel carburetors way out to the sides.
He drove it like a maniac.
Missed a turn once, and drove it into a long-abandoned dry canal bed; “the ditch,” he called it.
He wanted me to come pull it out with my tiny Triumph TR3 sportscar.
“Ya got it in the old Genesee Valley Canal,” I told him.
He ended up trying to back it out himself, and tore off the entire exhaust system.
A tow-truck pulled it out.
Here's my friend returning to Houghton at 120-130 mph with open exhausts. Sounded like the Daytona 500. Woke up cows in surrounding pastures.
He invited me to test-drive his '64 Plymouth, so I floored it south out of town.
Up through the gears we went, and in no time I was doing 120 mph on the clock.
WHOA! I backed off. I didn't realize I was going that fast.
—The second time was on my 1984 Yamaha RZ350 two-stroke motorcycle.
My brother from northern Delaware and I had towed our motorcycles to my baby sister's in Lynchburg, VA.
We set out for the Blue Ridge Mountains.
My brother roared off, and I had to do 120 mph to catch up.
A retired bus-driver from Regional Transit Service has a gorgeous 1949 Ford hot-rod, pearlescent white with with red flames.
“This thing is probably capable of 100 miles per hour,” I said; “but I don't know as I'd want to try it.”
I've never driven it, and as a 1949 it lacks the safety features you see on cars nowadays, like seat-belts and shoulder harnesses.
A while ago I attended a car-show where the owner of a '33 Ford V8 sedan detailed all the safety features it lacked; like a collapsible steering column, padded dash, etc.
He then claimed he felt safer at 75 in his '33 Ford than in current safety cars.
Not this kid!
That steering column would be waiting to impale my chest if I made a mistake.
Recently I viewed an Insurance-Institute video of a head-on crash between a '59 Chevy and a 2009 Malibu.

The '59 Chevy was destroyed, and its driver probably would have been killed. The driver's compartment was reduced to a shambles.
The Malibu was also destroyed, but its driver would have likely survived, slightly injured.
The driver's compartment was intact.

• “383” and “413” are cubic-inch engine displacements.
• “Four-speed” is a four-speed standard transmission, shifted by a floor-lever poking out of the center floor rise.
• A 300G is 1961.
• “TorqueFlite” was Chrysler's automatic transmission at that time. It had three speeds.
• “Ram manifolds” are long intake-runners out over the rocker-covers, clear to over the fender-wells. Runners that long supercharged the intake-charges to the cylinders — due to tuning of the moving intake-air columns. Ram-manifolds worked best at 4,000 rpm and up. By making the intake manifolds shorter, intake tuning occurred at a lower engine speed.
• The “Genesee River” is a fairly large river that runs south-to-north across Western New York, runs through Rochester, including over falls, and empties into Lake Ontario. —Shortly after the Erie Canal was built, a similar canal was built down the Genesee Valley. The Genesee Valley was the nation's first bread-basket. Wheat-milling was done in Rochester; first known as the “Flour City.”
• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY.