Quote:
Originally Posted by basjoos
The lower your cd or the greater your weight, the more easily your car will exceed the posted speed limits on a downhill run unless you use braking to limit the speed. The aerocivic is also a featherweight at 2100 lbs, but with its low cd pushing its terminal velocity somewhere above 100mph, it will easily exceed 75 mph on any reasonable downhill run long enough for it to build up speed. It doesn't even have to be a steep downhill.
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Hold on--I'm remembering my Galileo: bodies of varying mass fall at the same rate. The heavier car will also have more rolling resistance. But, the heavier car will have more momentum. Has anyone proven empirically that in the case of two cars, with identical Cd and frontal area but different masses, the heavier car will roll faster downhill? Does the increased momentum of a heavy car outweigh (ha!) the increased rolling resistance at some point, and where is that point?