@blatham,
Of course having the right car makes a huge difference. I couldn't have driven at 100 mph for an hour straight in a ten year old, 4 cyl, Corolla with 150,000 miles on the odometer.
I like fast cars and I buy fast cars. What's the point of buying a car with a 400 + hp engine if you're not going to drive it fast? In 1974, my father bought a Pontiac Firebird Trans Am with a V8 engine that produced something like 375 hp. Eight years earlier he had "settled" on a Pontiac LeMans when he really wanted a GTO, because my mother insisted "You don't own a car like that when you have three kids." In 1974, my sister, the last of the three kids, left the house and gave me the LeMans (metallic gold with black interior and a black landau roof -which was by no means a pig) and bought the Firebird. It was bright red with a white interior. I thought the color scheme was tacky but he had taken to wearing white belts and shoes and thought they were hip as hell. Tacky or not, it was faster than lightning.
My mother still never approved (the harpy never wanted him to have any fun) and gave him grief all the time, but he would always answer, "You have to drive this car fast honey, it hurts the engine if you don't. The car's in pain if I don't drive her fast, and you know I love her." It always infuriated my mother and we would both have a good laugh when we later drove very fast in the car.