What’s The Slowest Car You’re Willing To Drive On A Highway?

America’s highways and Interstates are often untamed and sometimes lawless. Spend enough time on any highway and you’ll find motorcycles splitting traffic at triple-digit speeds, road rage at 80 mph, street racing, and all sorts of other shenanigans. The highest speed limit in America is a highway in Texas with an 85 mph speed limit, while most other regions in America pick a number between 55 mph and 80 mph. These highways are unkind to the slowest cars that you can drive, yet some people are daring enough to try, anyway. What’s the slowest car that you’d be willing to drive on a highway?

This question sounds straightforward, but there are some factors to consider. In my travels across America, I’ve noticed that the highways around certain cities have pretty much two settings: Parking lot and Indy 500. For example, the highways around Los Angeles are frequently like a parking lot, where only motorcyclists are making good forward progress. This would be fine for even the slowest cars. During the worst periods of LA traffic, even a microcar is fast enough to scoot between exits.

However, I’ve noticed that, at least in SoCal and often in Chicago, once traffic dies down, sometimes it’s like you’ve stumbled into a racetrack, as everyone is punching it. I remember driving my 2016 Smart Fortwo home eastward from Los Angeles and getting passed by a straight truck. I looked down, and my speedometer said 83 mph. Yet, the straight truck was getting passed by people going even faster. This would be dangerous for a car incapable of going faster than the speed limit, if that.

“Slow” also has different meanings in this context. There are vehicles that accelerate very slowly but have decent cruising speeds, like semi-tractors, buses, and vintage cars. There are also vehicles that have low top speeds, like Ford Model Ts, some Japanese Kei cars, and Humvees. Highways also have minimum speeds, often numbers like 45 mph or 60 mph. However, going 45 mph on a highway with a 70 mph speed limit is asking for trouble unless you’re a semi hauling a titanic load.

With that in mind, I have more than one answer. If I’m doing a short run between exits in a city, I’d feel pretty comfortable taking my 1997 Honda Life. My Life has a realistic cruising speed of 60 mph, but I have gotten it above 70 mph before. The engine is absolutely screaming at that speed, so I wouldn’t do that for very long. In other words, if I needed to skip between two exits within Chicago, yeah, I’d feel okay doing it in my Kei.

If I have to drive any real distance, the slowest car I’d take is my Smart Fortwo diesel. This thing makes all of 40 HP and takes 20 seconds to get to 60 mph, but will drive at 80 mph all day if it has to. Some of my Canadian Smart friends have driven their diesels across Canada and the United States like that, and their cars had no problem keeping up with most traffic.

The vehicles I would not take out onto a highway are my pint-sized two-wheelers. My 2024 CFMoto Papio SS will top out at 62 mph on a very good day with a tailwind, but that’s absolutely beating on it. My 2005 Genuine Stella also once hit an indicated 70 mph (more like 65 mph actual), but that was downhill with a tailwind, and I was tucked in so hard that I barely saw the road ahead.

Here’s where I turn things over to you. What’s the slowest car you’d dare to take out onto an American expressway?

Top graphic images: Volkswagen; depositphotos.com