NYT article -- Italian highway police drives Lamborghini
 

This is a fun article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/12/in...ope/12car.html

LOL, I am sure my husband who likes fast cars would still not accept that ticket so happily !
He might want to be an Italian policeman now, though~

It was good to find out that your real trouble is after 170 kmh

Can this be right?

"On this stretch this summer, Superintendent Bizzarro had to push the car up to about 185 miles an hour to stop a Porsche going about 155 - or almost twice the speed limit of 80."

So 185 mph = 185 x 1.6 = 296 km/h. It's very fast....

How fast do the TGV and Eurostar go?

For those interested, in testing in 1990, TGV Atlantique reached a stop speed of 515 km/h:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A711785

Sounds like TGV regularly goes over 300 km/h.

Whoops! Glad they didn't have that car when I was driving the Autostrada! "Your not going 160kms are you John", asked my sister. "Of course not", I replied. I was doing 180!

Is this such a surprise? For a while some New York State Troopers were driving black (tinted windowed) supercharged Camaros. (To give the speeder a ticket you first have to catch them!)

Actually, honestly I don't know much about cars. Does a Camaro have the same cachet as a Lamborghini? I did look it up -- it's a Chevrolet, right?
Presumably cheaper, at least?

Yes, much cheaper. But another antithesis of the usual cop car.

I remember my first trip to europe about 15 years ago, stopped for lunch in Netherlands, looking out bus window and seeing a police car that was a Porsche 911...talk about things that make you go 'hmmm...'

The usual TOP speed of a TGV is about 300 kph or about 180 mph...I wish they DID go as fast as they do in the "tests."

As to diving a Lamborghini..well, once you've driven one I can tell you from personal experience, it is difficult to go back to something else and, forunately, some of us don't have to.

Yup, that is a funny article, 111op. And some of the replies reminded me of my two years in the Netherlands driving a 911S. The Dutch National Police were driving them also. Theirs were white Targas and they always had the tops off because the cops were so tall and were wearing their helmets. The helmets stuck out the top. They nearly caught me once. Well, actually I slowed down so there would be no evidence. They paced me at arms reach for miles and kept looking over at me, nervously shaking in my driving gloves. When they finally pulled off the road other drivers who had seen the encounter passed by with a big laugh on their face.

You question the statement <i>On this stretch this summer, Superintendent Bizzarro had to push the car up to about 185 miles an hour to stop a Porsche going about 155 - or almost twice the speed limit of 80.</i> My 1975 Porsche had a rated top speed of 145 mph as I recall, though I never took it much over 120. The author evidently converted 130 kph to 80 mph because nobody in the USA would have any comprehension of 130 kph, which would be kid speed in Germany. I had a 1.9 liter Opel there and regularly drove 180 kph (~110 mph) up the Autobahn every morning, and having my doors blown off by 700 series Beemers and such all the time.

Interesting. I've not driven in more than three years, and even when I drove, I never drove regularly (so I was never a comfortable driver). 110 mph would be considered a bit extreme in the US, I think, where the speed limit is usually 55-65 mph, but I guess there'll be Americans who'll correct me if this is wrong.