When 50 feels like 80

Since pulling the trigger on a Series (III) Land Rover, I’ve been on a steady diet of YouTube videos. Restoration videos; how-to videos; for sale videos; and lots of fan videos. One of the best of these is on a channel called Harry’s Garage. I gather Harry knows a good bit about cars and he is very found of his 1954 Series I Land Rover.

First half of the video is a walk-around and in the second half he takes us for a ride. The person recording the video is in the back of the truck and you can see the road and the speedometer. But you can’t hear a word old Harry is saying because the truck is so loud. When the speed reaches 50 mph the truck is shaking like the space shuttle during lift-off.

Since learning my new highway top-end would be around 50 mph I’ve been setting the cruise control on my MINI at 55 to get a feel for what was coming. It felt frighteningly slow. Every other car whizzing by. How will I get used to this, I wondered.

I won’t have to. Riding along with old Harry in his Series I at 50 mph felt like 80 mph!