How to Calculate the Horsepower of a Car
Posted on: 08/04/2014‘Horsepower’ was originally dreamt up as quite a random, abstract set of numbers, plucked out of the fragrant 18th Century air by one James Watt.
At the time he was observing the workload that pit ponies were capable of and, needing a standard unit of measure for his steam engines, decided to allot a unit of work to a horse, using the pony as a guide- and then adding a bit. So a pony is this big… a horse is that big… Ok, call it 50% more. Yeah. That random.