Juergen . responds:
[...]It isn't a matter of being late or not, but of being able to accelerate at a rate that's compatible with the flow of traffic. Who wants to be (let alone drive behind) a rolling roadblock?
There's also the need to be able to merge onto the freeway safely. I remember a road test of the 220D in one of the major American car magazines (I believe it was _Car And Driver_) circa 1973. The car's zero-to-sixty (mph) time was an appalling *28 seconds.* And mind you, that was when even the emissions-control-strangled cars of the time could typically reach 60 in about 1/3 as long.
Geoff