hp

Here is another aspect of life in America that I haven't understood yet.

Of what use are the large engines, having some three to eight liters of displacement (btw, why is this measured in liters, not in quarts or gallons or fl. oz.?), when one cannot use them anywhere except for a racing-style head start at the traffic lights? Highways are limited to 60 or 70 mph everywhere, and for good reason.

But this results in something else, an experience that is probably unknown to the average American car driver... the feeling of the engine being maxed out, not yielding more power any more, once you have reached the car's top speed, determined by a combination of engine power, wind resistance, and road slope and curvature. The neurons which convey an intuitive feel of this subtle relationship at around 180-220km/h must be missing from an American brain. Or maybe they are used for other things. Maybe marksmanship.