160mph speedometers. Why?

My Phaeton had a 200 mph speedo.   But my Passat only has a rather pedestrian 160 dial.

Both are limited to 130.

the speedo on my Disco goes to 135, that particular cinderblock shaped vehicle can barely get over 100.

Now the Abarth has a 160 mph speed, but the car will get to 130. I think it would very scary at 130, but it will do it.  I think I would rather top the Disco out at 105 than the Abarth at 130.

pigfarmer said:

Why? Because they're cool

160 works well in this layout. The sweep is nearly 360 degrees, large print, and its for a car that can use most of it.

VolvoHeretic said:

It's all that hit song's fault, "My Maserati goes 185." I don't think that any Maserati ever went that fast.

A 401 CJ said:

I had a buddy in college who had a Dodge Omni with a 125 mph speedo at a time when most everything else was 85.  It wasn't a GLHS, or a GLH, or even a turbo. Just a base car with a stick.  And he swore up and down that it'd do every bit of it.  I incredulous until he proved it one day.  There was a section of interstate highway with about a 7 mile grade.  He went down that in 5th and just wound it until the needle was well past the 125.  I had just assumed he meant it was that fast on level ground.

I had a '87 Dodge Colt just shy of 100mph and it had 55hp and a 4 speed (5 speed was available in some other versions). Wikipedia says some Omnis had 93hp.

I think it's a matter of scaling. I actually teach my high school students how to  come up with a proper linear scale when graphing their lab results. Sometimes that scale doesn't include any actual figures that were obtained, but serve as a nice marker to make the graph readable. I bet the 160 speedometer is the same in that it gives our eyes/brains an easy way to quickly determine speed based on approximations of needle position. 

In reply to RaabTheSaab :

Many new electronic speedometers are not linear. 

The last mark on the Jeep speedo is 125.  Original speed limiter was 115, so that's a reasonable match.  At this point there's no limiter in the ECU, so I know it would have no problem winding out the speedo, but I have no desire to try in that thing.  Straight up on the Jeep speedo is just shy of 65 IIRC. 

The BMW has typical German precision.  The last mark on the speedo is 155, and the speed limiter is also set at 155.  Straight up on that speedo is just over 80.  Sometimes I question the precision of things in that car, like "does the gas gauge hit the empty peg at the exact point where the engine stops running due to lack of fuel?" 

Driving this 68 Maserati Ghibli made me think of this thread. Seems highly optimistic 

My son's first car was a '77 Mercury Monarch, with the mandated 85 MPH speedometer.  One of the first things he scarfed off of a '75 Granada parts car was the 120 MPH version.  I can't blame him, even if I wasn't entirely certain of the car's capability of hitting 85 (stock 2-bbl 302 w/automatic).

This 65 Ferrari 330gt has the 180. 

Again, highly optimistic