| A couple of days back in a thread about 6-speed trannys and such - which, now 
that I want
to refer back to it, I find that I didn't archive :^( -  someone mentioned that 
the auto
companies have been wont to juggle tranny and axle ratios to get a good 0-60 
time to keep
the advertising department happy. Well, ,on that subject - I  just read an 
article about
the engineering aspects of the development of the new Ford Thunderbird, in 
Design News
magazine, which recounted how the engineers at Ford changed the rear-axle ratio 
on the
convertible version of the 'bird from the hardtop's 3:31:1 to 3.58:1 to improve 
their 0-60
performance (overcoming the convertible's higher drag)  with "...only a slight 
degradation
in fuel mileage."
I thought that was kind of interesting...
Gary McCormick
SRL311-13291
San Jose, CA
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