“Them are 200 mph tires!”

To which I could have said: “And where, pray tell, do you expect to do 200 mph?”
This was my niece’s husband, who I try to not give a hard time.
After all, he’s the same guy I gave a hard time to after he bragged his Ford V6 motor was 32-valve.
Last Sunday (November 30th, 2014) I ate out in Rochester (NY) with my niece, her husband and their daughter, and my niece’s mother, with whom they all live.
Her mother is my wife’s brother’s first wife. He’s now on wife number-four, and she’ll probably be his last. My wife’s brother has been slammed this way and that.
A 32-valve V6 is impossible. A V6 with four valves per cylinder is 24 valves. Five valves per cylinder would total 30 valves. —I haven’t seen any, but Yamaha made five valves per cylinder. It was an inline-four motorcycle-engine: 20 valves.
32 valves are only V8s; eight times four valves per cylinder equals 32.
My niece’s husband was so sure of himself, he increased his volume.
But I wasn’t swayed. A 32-valve V6 is too many valves.
My next question could have been how does one get a two-ton four-door sedan to do 200 mph?
It’s motor is strong, but 200 mph? 150 maybe.
Niece’s husband was mad because their GPS led them onto a dirt road going to New York City.
That trip left him with slight damage to one of his $1500 20-inch alloy wheels. Damage my niece and I couldn’t see, but her husband saw it.
He was gonna call in his auto-insurance: Geico.
So I didn’t say anything about the 200-mph tires.
What I did instead was scratch my head over how a GPS could lead you into the boonies.
Going to New York City; for crying out loud!
“I don’t trust ‘em,” I implied. “This kid has to know how he’s going before he starts.”
“But for an unknown location,” my niece said; “GPS is required.”
“In which case I do some research first, and print out Google-maps,” I said. “Google even has ‘street-views;’ that’s better than being led onto a dirt road.”
Years ago, in high-school and college, I used to lust after maximum automotive performance. Ferrari or Lotus for me!
But after well over 50 years of driving in 15 cars, I have fallen back to just wanting the thing to start and run reliably — my paternal grandmother’s values.
Most trips are pillar-to-post. 200 mph is Bonneville Salt Flats.

• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her dearly.
• The “Bonneville Salt Flats” are a huge expanse of empty and level desert in northwestern Utah. It has a race-track on it used for speed-trials. The area is big enough and flat enough for record ground-speeds; even higher than the sound-barrier. The area was once part of an inland sea; all that remain are Great Salt Lake, and the salt-flats.