Harry Wyeth wrote in USMA 23488:
An afterthought from my trip to Spain, which I forgot to mention in my last message: I was talking to a friend about his new Audi diesel car (diesel Audis are not available in the US), which he bought because of the superior power and fuel economy. He volunteered that his new wheels has so-and-so "caballos".
For those of us not living next a Spanish-speaking country, this seems to be continental Spanish for US-style horsepower. Same in the rest of Europe?
HARRY WYETH
I suspect that the caballos is the metric horsepower of 75 metre-kilograms(force) per second rather than the British horsepower of 550 foot-pounds per second. In French the metric horsepower is called the cheval vapeur or CV.
1 metric horsepower = 75 metre-kilograms per second
= 735.499 W
1 British horsepower = 550 ft-lbf/s
= 745.700 W
Joseph B. Reid
17 Glebe Road West
Toronto M5P 1C8 Telephone 416-486-6071
