R35 Speed Limiter In Japan?

[sydking]

at 50 sec he talks about all Japanese cars on there roads are speed limited to 112 mph. is this true?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nK-R1g5E_g

Edited October 13, 2009 by sydking

[Chrispy]

Yep, all cars are limited to 185kph, except the Kei class cars which are limited to 140kph.

[sydking]

any idea who came up with this limitation? they have a auto barn type road? if not why 185 kph, pretty high speed to crash at.

[sneakey pete]

There was a guy there who filmed himself doing 205mph down the freeway in a Lambo in the 80's. Not sure if that has anything to do with it though.

[lachlanw]

yeah the r35 has a limiter untoill the sat nav knows your on the race track and turns it off

[scathing]

any idea who came up with this limitation?

The Japanese department of transport.

Why 185 kph, pretty high speed to crash at.

You may as well ask why manufacturers can build cars capable of doing more than 110km/hr in Australia.

The higher speed still gives the cars plenty of headroom. When they implemented the laws there weren't that many cars that could even touch that speed on a long stretch of road, which meant most cars weren't going to tag the limiter on a race track.

Artificially limiting the speed also helps manufacturers, and your run-of-the-mill customer. Most countries have laws that state that the tyres on the car must be rated to the highest capable speed of the car. With a 180km/hr speed cut, you can legally stick el-cheapo S rated tyres on any vehicle.

[gotRICE?]

^^ what he said.

Its all about engineering.

If you set a govern of 180km/h then you only have to engineer the car to that level. IE Brakes, tires, suspension, aerodynamics.. etc etc.

If you start throwing 300km/h speedo's in every car, then the prices im sure would get rather steep as they would have to engineer the car to be capable of doing that speed.

As far as im aware, the R35 speed cut is automatically removed if you drive onto the property of any of the Japanese racetracks