The testing performed at the General Motors Milford Proving Ground is grueling on both drivers and vehicles.
The engineers who evaluate cars at high speeds are the top guns of driving and there are many safety measures in place. There’s also a strong support staff.
The punishing testing of the vehicles leads to safer cars coming off assembly lines. Here are some facts about this highly secured and surveilled place out in the country northwest of Detroit.
What kind of roads are used to test vehicles?
The road surfaces vary from dirt, to hills, to bumpy concrete with purpose-made potholes, to a straightaway with no speed limit, to the three-mile Milford Road Course and Black Lake. Black Lake is a slab of black asphalt that in the sunlight looks like water. It is the size of 59 football fields.
GM’s proving ground provided Disney World with inspiration
The Test Track ride at Disney World in Florida was inspired by Milford Proving Ground. The experience was modeled around a combination of GM’s test loops.
How dangerous is it to test drive a car?
GM measures safety as accidents per million miles and its accident rate is half that of the national average on the public road system.
Has anyone died test driving a car?
In the nearly 100 years GM has had the facility, eight drivers have died. GM’s first fatalities were in 1930. GM was testing a Cadillac V-16 Roadster convertible at 112 mph when the tires blew out resulting in two engineers dying. That incident inspired the S-rating in the speed rating on tires. S-rated tires have 112 mph as the designated maximum speed they can go safely while continuously running.
Where does GM test its muscle cars?
The Milford Road Course is the brainchild of former GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz. It is a racetrack designed after parts of the challenging Nurburgring in Germany and Laguna Seca track in California. It’s a three-mile course with 17 turns. GM tests its Corvette Z06, the Cadillac Blackwing sports sedans and the Camaro muscle car on this track. When testing a Corvette, engineers do laps until the gas tank is empty. At 165 mph to 185 mph that takes about 40 minutes.
What’s the fastest test speed at the ground?
GM engineers tested a vehicle at 220 mph on the three-mile long North-South Straightaway track. GM declines to identify the vehicle.
Hand-free steering at 100 mph
GM’s Circle Track is a five-mile bowl with five lanes and a safety lane. The top lane has a 30% bank angle which is the same as Daytona Speedway. The banked angles allow for vehicles in each lane to find a speed where physics takes over and steers the car. To prove it, a test driver swings in the top lane and hits the accelerator to 105 mph and takes his hands off the wheel. The car steers itself around the track.
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Contact Jamie L. LaReau: jlareau@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @jlareauan. Read more on General Motors and sign up for our autos newsletter. Become a subscriber.