Performance

Keeping Up with Modern Traffic

Performance Modifications

When the Model A was introduced in 1929, it was one of the fastest cars on the road. With a top speed of around 60mph, the Model A could easily be "overdriven" on the early roads (often dirt or gravel) of the time. The car has a transmission geared for high torque and in its stock configuration takes some time to get up to the 45-50mph that most owners consider the top safe speed.

This was fine in the 1930s. Today, if you are going to drive your Model A on the same roads used by modern cars, it's less acceptable. In the last 10 years, horsepower increases have been significant, even for smaller "economy" cars. On top of this, both speend limits and the speeds at which drivers feel comfortable driving have increased as well.

These factors mean that a stock Model A is at something of a disadvantage when driving alongside modern cars on today's roads.

There are a number of things you can do to improve the speed and power of your Model A to make it easier to keep up with the flow of traffic and to give you the speed neeeded to avoid becoming a hazard to other drivers. The links below explain some of the options:

• Higher compression heads
• A more modern carburetor
• Headers
• Modern ignition system