Unfamiliar Cars

[John_Kunkel]

The recent thread about a shop owner who totaled a customer's car reminded me of an incident from my past.

A non-Mopar friend used to accompany me when I would take a car to the local annual Mopar club show in the park. One year I wanted to take two cars to the show and ask him to drive the tamer of the two cars. I drove my Max Wedge car he followed in my daily driver '62 Dart wagon.

When we got to the show, he told me he was really tense for the whole ten-mile trip because the wagon wandered so much. He wasn't used to the infamous Mopar over-boosted" power steering and over-corrected the normal wander. That's how accidents happen when unfamiliar drivers get into a strange car.

The day ended well, both cars took a trophy so I let him accept the trophy for the wagon.

[Mike DC]

           
It's partly the steering box.  But the (lack of) caster in the front end alignment is what causes a lot of that "wandering".  The zero caster was a compromise by the front suspension designers, to make the steering effort lower on manual-steered models. 


I think modern drivers also need to be warned about the brakes on any muscle car with front drums.  These days people are used to cars that stop much better.  They follow other cars too closely.   

     

[John_Kunkel]

The wagon was my daily driver for several years and it didn't wander any more than normal, he just used the force he was used to in other cars to correct and wound up over-correcting. I warned him of the tendency to over-correct and to steer it more gently...on the trip home, he had no problem.

The point is, be extra careful when driving an unfamiliar car. Lots of serious accidents are attributed to unfamiliarity.

[doctor4766]

Back when I was building my first Charger, around 2007 perhaps, a friend of mine who has always had American cars here in Perth asked me to drive his 64 Polara to our local Chrysler show. He had 3 cars he wanted seen at the show, so I agreed to take one for him.
It was my very first time driving a LHD vehicle and I gotta tell ya, it was quite scary.
I felt I was too close to the curb (on my left) and it was like a force was pushing me toward the centre of the road. My RH wheels were going over the cat's eye reflectors, so I knew I wasn't where I should have been.
It didn't help that the steering felt sloppy too and when we arrived at the show grounds, he remarked that once my Charger was on the road it would drive just as nicely lol
Fortunately, since all of the front-end components had been replaced it actually drove much like a modern car.

[Mike DC]

Back when I was building my first Charger, around 2007 perhaps, a friend of mine who has always had American cars here in Perth asked me to drive his 64 Polara to our local Chrysler show. He had 3 cars he wanted seen at the show, so I agreed to take one for him.
It was my very first time driving a LHD vehicle and I gotta tell ya, it was quite scary.
I felt I was too close to the curb (on my left) and it was like a force was pushing me toward the centre of the road. My RH wheels were going over the cat's eye reflectors, so I knew I wasn't where I should have been.
It didn't help that the steering felt sloppy too and when we arrived at the show grounds, he remarked that once my Charger was on the road it would drive just as nicely lol
Fortunately, since all of the front-end components had been replaced it actually drove much like a modern car.

That has to be spooky. 

I feel like it would be even more spooky to drive on the wrong side of the road from what I was raised on. 

I've been to UK.  Just navigating the cities on foot almost got me killed a few times.  I kept instinctively looking the wrong way (for oncoming cars) before stepping out into the street to walk across.

[doctor4766]

Back when I was building my first Charger, around 2007 perhaps, a friend of mine who has always had American cars here in Perth asked me to drive his 64 Polara to our local Chrysler show. He had 3 cars he wanted seen at the show, so I agreed to take one for him.
It was my very first time driving a LHD vehicle and I gotta tell ya, it was quite scary.
I felt I was too close to the curb (on my left) and it was like a force was pushing me toward the centre of the road. My RH wheels were going over the cat's eye reflectors, so I knew I wasn't where I should have been.
It didn't help that the steering felt sloppy too and when we arrived at the show grounds, he remarked that once my Charger was on the road it would drive just as nicely lol
Fortunately, since all of the front-end components had been replaced it actually drove much like a modern car.

That has to be spooky. 

I feel like it would be even more spooky to drive on the wrong side of the road from what I was raised on. 

I've been to UK.  Just navigating the cities on foot almost got me killed a few times.  I kept instinctively looking the wrong way (for oncoming cars) before stepping out into the street to walk across.

Yes, initially it was quite daunting, but once I started driving my Charger, I found it easy, even after just a couple of hundred kilometres.

I think I would find it a little easier now if I were to drive a LHD car on the RH side of the road now that I'm used to sitting on this side of the car.