“I Feel the Need……..The Need for Speed”

What is our fascination with speed?  It doesn't matter if its cars, motorcycles, planes, or even the latest track stars, we all love to see something go fast!  Maybe it’s a guy thing but we always want whatever we are driving to go faster…….we never seem to be satisfied with how fast it will go, we always want more.

The year was 1986 and a popular movie was released by the name of "Top Gun” starring Tom Cruise and it portrayed a Navy fighter pilot who loved to go fast and show out.  One famous line in the movie has been quoted for years by car guys everywhere……”I feel the need, the need for speed”.  Fast forward a few years and a new video game was released for the PlayStation and Sega called “Need for Speed” and it featured you in a role play game where you were behind the wheel driving some of the fastest cars of all time.  With each new release of the game, it allowed you to blast down the road in the most popular and exotic super cars of the world!  I can remember waiting for the next version of the game to come out each year, because you always wanted to see which new super cars would be on it.  A few years later they even had an edition call “Need for Speed-Hot Pursuit” where the goal was to drive it like you stole it and outrun the cops after they began chasing you.  (Note…..don’t try this in real life!)

Hollywood has now made a new movie called “Need for Speed” that tells the story of an underground street racer who was framed and has now been released from prison.  He joins a cross country race event to get revenge on the man who set him up.  Needless to say there will be lots of high speed car chases and tons of awesome looking cars.  There was even a specially designed 2014 Mustang custom built for this movie and it promises to do some stunts that will take our breath away.  Just in the last couple of weeks it has been revealed that the newly released 2015 Ford Mustang will also make a cameo appearance in the movie.  I’m sure this movie will pay tribute to all the classic car chase movies of recent fame (Bullitt, Gone in Sixty Seconds) that also featured famous Mustangs.

Now back to my original question……what is up with our obsession with speed?  The Bugatti Veyron has held the title of fastest production car for the past few years, but that record was just broken this year by a newcomer.  The Hennessey Venom GT set a new world record of 270.49 mph (435.31 km/h) for a 2-seater sports car.  Hats off to the Hennessey Performance team for such an incredible run and such a spectacular looking car!  I can’t wait to see what will break the record next.

So it matters not if you are driving a car, flying a plane, racing a horse, or even the neighborhood foot race…..everybody wants to be the fastest.  Some say it’s the adrenaline rush or just the thrill of going faster than what seems humanly possible.  I say that as long as people are traveling in some type of vehicle even if it’s in personal Spacecraft’s one day……..it’s always going to be a race to see who is the fastest as they satisfy their “Need for Speed”!