Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[Rick]

Hi all,

Yesterday while ambling up the motorway, I came across an immaculate green Pop 103E doing 30mph. Im not entirely sure I'd feel comfortable driving so slowly on a busy motorway at that kind of speed.

Do you take your old motor on the Mway, if so what speed's it happy at?

RJ
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[colwyn500]

I don't think it is fair on other drivers if you know that you're going to be doing less than 60mph on a motorway in any car when going over a significant distance. The Fiat 500 can cruise at 55mph without effort but I soon took to the A roads on my 350 mile journey earlier this year.
If lorries are forced to overtake you it can be scary and that's a sign you need to leave at the next exit.

[mikeC]

My Lancia is perfectly happy cruising at 55-60mph, and I feel very vulnerable on Motorways. I steer clear of them whenever possible, and usually have a very enjoyable drive on the old A roads which tend to be relatively traffic free, and ideal for classic cars. I am quite prepared to travel many miles more to avoid the Motorways,but then I do that with my modern, too

[Ashley]

Both the Bentley and Healey are happy at 70+ but I don't feel comfortable on busy Brit motorways in either. Nobody makes allowances for the limitations of old cars, so they all bunch up round you however hard you try to make some space for stopping or whatever.

Mind you I've just come back from Prescott this afternoon amongst the most gormless and thoughtless driving imaginable, all at 18-37mph with constant brake dabbing. It's exhausting in the Healey.

[Bitumen Boy]

I don't like motorway driving in any vehicle, mostly because of the lousy driving you see whenever there's any volume of traffic, but also because I find it a great strain to drive at high speed for any length of time, and of course the fact that when the inevitable accident happens in front of you you'll be stuck there all day. Busy dual carriageways are just as bad so I tend to avoid those as well... The problem I find is that although the Herald will happily cruise along with the heavies, as soon as I have a gap in front that I'm happy with, that gives me adequate room to stop if necessary and to see what's going on, some idiot will always jump into that gap. No thanks!

If, however, the road is quiet and I need to make time or save a long diversion, I'll use them. Once I took the M4 to bypass Newport and its umpteen sets of lights or roundabouts - at about 2.30am, which was just about nice. I'll always use the old Severn bridge, but travel to Chepstow and onwards from Aust via the back roads. The A40 Abergavenny - Raglan is boring but worth a punt, but I won't touch the Raglan - Monmouth and Monmouth - Ross sections with a bargepole. It gets more difficult to avoid using the busy dual sections though, as once upon a time the old road was left pretty well untouched alongside the old (skilled map reading will generally sniff these out) but the modern method is to build the new road on top of the old and leave no alternative other than a lengthy diversion

[Phil - Nottingham]

All our classics are used om MWay but I prefer not to use the pre-war Rover 16 on them especially if busy as its cruising speed is 55-60 but will go faster but its not very relaxing as I feel pressured to hurry along.

A slow moving car IMHO would be dangerous if it was slower than 45 mph
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Rover P2
Rover P4
Rover P5 & P5B
Land Rover S2 & S3
Morris Mini Traveller Mk2

[Roger-hatchy]

This year I did the trip to Blackpool via motorways.
I usually do the trip without any motorway.
It usually takes me about 7 hours with a couple of meal brakes
This year it took me 6 and a half hours with only one stop.

Nothing gained really and was a total boring drive.

Most of the time I couldn't do over 50 even if I wanted to,
got on the M55 and wound it out to 80, still more to go, for a short time than backed of to a steady 55.

When I was driving for a living, HGV, I often found it quicker off the motorways.

[Roger-hatchy]

PS. The DLM is happy cruising at 55-60

[peppiB]

When I had the Moggy it used to cruise along at 50 - 55 mph, but even at that speed there were buttock clenching moments with lorries passing. Drive my Landcrab on motorways a fair bit, but that is happy at 60 - 65 and if I am not careful it sneaks up to 75 (on the clock, probably a lot less on the road)

Once towing another landcrab on the M62 up the incline away from Manchester I could only attain 30 mph and that was scary

[MikeEdwards]

I don't do many shows in the Firenza that are sufficiently distant to be worth using a motorway, but on the odd occasion that I do, I use them. One issue that was putting me off was that it doesn't have door mirrors so I felt that changing lanes would be an issue. For its first trip to Billing I resolved to stick to about 50mph in the left hand lane, but it soon became necessary to overtake something going slower, and once you get used to using the internal mirror and checking over the shoulder, I think it actually makes for a smoother journey as overtakes are planned much more in advance. And once I was used to it, I was sitting with normal traffic at basically normal motorway speeds.

I do try to make sure the journeys are at times that are likely to be quiet, so far as it's possible to plan stuff like that. So I'll go at 7.30am, and try to leave the show around 3pm to get back up here before the M6 gets too bad. Part of the issue when going to somewhere like Northampton or Luton is that to get there without motorways would take quite a bit longer, but the key for me is that going up and down the gears on A roads and through towns makes a serious difference to fuel consumption, a nice steady motorway run makes it much more economical.

What scares me, though, is the advent of so-called "Smart" motorways, where there will be no hard shoulder at peak times. I need to find a way to get hazard flashers on the car, and will think again about door mirrors, but it still concerns me that there will be no safe place to stop.

[Rick]

[peter scott]

My SS will do 80mph quite happily but generally on Motorways I drive it 60mph so that I can travel in the inside lane but not to get in the way of the lorries.

Peter
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[Rootes75]

I have never taken my cars on the motorway, in a way I don't think its right to travel on the motorway at such a low speed. I also would feel a bit unsafe without seat belts etc.
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[Ray White]

When I used my Triumph GT6 on an everyday basis, I would quite happily stick to 70 to 75 for quite long motorway journeys. My car was equipped with overdrive and also extra sound deadening so it was quite reasonable. Somehow, having a good turn of speed made it feel less vulnerable.

Driving my 1926 Dodge Brothers tourer on a major road is not a pleasant experience. I have travelled from Derby to Nottingham a few times on the A52 dual carriageway and although the top speed is only 50 mph, the large size of the car and the fact that it is painted white, means that I don't feel particularly vulnerable but I have no side curtains should the weather be inclement and I am not sure an open car is really ideal.

I have seldom driven my Austin Swallow on anything other than local roads because I feel so vulnerable, although I did once go from where I used to live in Wokingham to Coventry for a reunion and back the next day but I wouldn't repeat the exercise.

I am not sure it is sensible to take old cars onto Motorways but when the new roads were first built many of the cars using them would be slow by todays standards so I assume it is modern traffic that is the problem rather than the Motorways themselves.

[goneps]

While in principle I'll avoid motorways wherever possible when driving the Morris, there's just no alternative to using them to get around Auckland. Simply to cross the harbour bridge and head south or north there is no option but to use the motorway; the only alternative crossing, which is a long way around, was upgraded to a motorway a few years ago. Our motorways are not built to the same standard as those in Britain. From what I've seen and heard, Auckland's motorways are pretty much on a par with the M25 around London—at best a mobile traffic jam, at worst clogged for hours every day.

Built on a narrow isthmus, Auckland is extremely spread out despite the relatively small population of 1.5 million. There's a north/south distance of around 40 miles between country road options, so it's either a long grind down the motorway at 45mph or slogging for hours through the chaos of narrow urban streets, traffic lights, and Sunday drivers. Thus despite the tedium and the unpleasantness of huge truck wheels bowling past above one's head (particularly in an open car), the motorway is the lesser of two evils.

What I don't understand are those many drivers of Morris Eights who persist in using motorways and main roads when they don't have to. Their argument is that it's easy for faster-moving traffic (ie. everyone else) to pass them on multiple lanes, but as has already been pointed out it's impossible to relax and enjoy the car, and for my money they're just a damned nuisance to themselves and other traffic.

As for potential danger in the event of a breakdown. there are no shoulders on the harbour bridge or the adjacent spaghetti junction immediately south of it. Travelling to or from the south, respectively a shoulderless two-lane viaduct or three-lane tunnel must be negotiated. So for about four miles one has to rely upon hoping for the best—not ideal it must be said, though possibly a test of confidence in one's maintenance skills and consequently the car's reliability.

Richard