253 MPH and Still a Little Late

Los Angeles Times ^

[liberallarry]

A superlative on four wheels, the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 is not only the world's fastest production car but also the most expensive: $1.25 million before taxes and richly deserved gas-guzzler penalties. Also, the most powerful: Its 8.0-liter 16-cylinder quad-turbo engine produces about 1,000 horsepower and churns it through a high-tech all-wheel-drive system and gob-smacking foot-wide tires. Also, the quickest: The Veyron accelerates to 60 mph in 2.1 seconds, faster than a Formula 1 car, but then it's just getting started. In 20 seconds — about the time it takes a fast reader to get through this paragraph — it reaches 200 mph. In 53 mind-blowing seconds, the Veyron reaches its marquee speed: 253 mph.

[JasonC]

ME - myself, I
2 - also, as well, in addition

[wildbill]

Runs out fuel quickly but it gets its 12 minutes of fame.

[Pete'sWife]

NOW CUT THAT OUT!!!

I happen to like Edsels. An Edsel is far more affordable than one of those other things. And it has big wide seats and a cushy ride and a bigger trunk and wide whitewall tires and a pushbutton transmission!

[Chode]

please...

[WhirlwindAttack]

Ouch, daddy's gonna be pissed

[Sally'sConcerns]

Gee - I wonder what going from 253mph to zero in 10 seconds does to your brain and other internal organs.

If the stop is hard enough to pull your sunglasses off of your face, I'd guess your brain might slosh around a bit. Guess one would have to interview the person who experienced this in a before and after interview to see how they might have been affected.

[cloud8]

"Bugatti has said it will build no more than 300 of the cars, optimally 50 to 80 per year.... Even if Bugatti sells every car, it won't make a dime. "Volkswagen will only net about $350 million from the Veyron," says Car and Driver's Csere." Italics mine. At $1.25M a pop, that's a $1,000,000 apiece, $25,000 profit and priceless bragging rights. Sweet!

[cloud8]

LOL

Now this is a Bugg. Is the snout on the Veyron inspired by Edsel or the Type 57?

[wardaddy]

Had my foot glued right to the floor; I said, "That's all there is - there ain't no more."

[wardaddy]

I sold diamond rough in London to a fella that owned one of these....and parked it on the street (hatton garden)...this model looks like the designer was sleeping with a Talbot employee doesn't it? this one is Ralph's I think

[billhilly]

This one looks just a little like one of my Labrador's bones.

[ChefKeith]

Dear Santa,

All I want for Christmas is...

[cloud8]

Parked on the steet! Must be some neighborhood.

I was just reading up on the Type 55. It came out in 1935 with a DOHC 2.3 liter 8 and a blower that ran at 10 lbs. It did 0-60 in a little over 9 seconds and was capable of 120 mph!

This here's my kind of race...I mean sports car, a T13 (early 20s?). The front wheels are canted so severely, it looks like the left one's about to fall off.

[raygun]

First off, the car is stunningly ugly, and weighs more'n an equivalent volume of depleted uranium (1888 Kg). No wonder it needs an 8.0 litre engine to drive it. Not much improvement over the Bugatti EB110 (even the Dauer modified ultra-light). Frankly, it strikes me that a Bugatti engineer was a fly on the wall in the Ford GT-90 engineering labs. The Koenigsegg 2004 CCR is a much finer ride, and one can buy 4 for the price of one of the Bugatti's, and the CCR would leave Bugatti in the dust. Even a Lamborghini Diablo GTR would be a better choice. As far as that goes, those cars are are all nothing more than Sunday-go-to-meetin' cars, as they all look nice and all that. If you want to talk car then one's mouth had better be forming the words McLean or F50. Frankly, I'd take the Ferrari F-50 over a McClaren any day of the week. The latter in the Koenig configuration, with a 4.7 liter V-12, supercharged twin-turbos, sports 828 horsepower @ 7500 RPM (720 horsepower @10500 RPM) driving 907 Kg down the road at 11,000 RPM red-line. The only other worthy adversary against all these two, would be the Porsche 911 850 GTR.

Of course, if one really wants to talk cars, then not much can be said after 1994 Dauer 962 LM. While sporting a red-line of merely 7800 RPM, the 2.9 liter flat-6 can propels 1020 Kg off the line to 60 MPH in 2.6 seconds (1st gear topping at 100MPH and another 5 gears thereafter) having a top speed of 251.4 MPH. The street-legal 962LM is 180Kg more massive than the Porsche 962 racer, which in 1994 after dominating Le Mans Group C racing for over a decade, was doomed by FIA rule changes designed to prevent another 962 win. These rule changes in my opinion also relegated the sport forever to the dustbin of history.

With respect to the stats cited against a Formula One racer, I have no clue what they're spewing there. First off you're looking at a 505Kg car sporting 800+ horsepower. That's a lot of ponies to be putting to the road with that little mass.

According the the telemetry in my Formula One sim, at Monza, I come out of the hole at the Rettifilo Tribune at 39.35 MPH, 1010 meters later I'm approaching Variante della Roggia at 214.5 MPH. That's an average velocity of 126.92, but telemetry shows an average over the distance of 164.2 MPH. Coming out of the final turn in the Rettifilo, I'm at the 700m mark, by 800m, I'm sporting 119.4 MPH (telemetry shows an average of 76.7 MPH over the distance). Anyways, the bottom line here is telemetery shows 1.5 longitudinal g's out of the hole at the Rettifilo. The Bugatti's claimed 0-60 in 2.1sec works out to 1.303 g's.

Furthermore, as I approach the Rettifilo after the long straightaway passed pit row, I'm sporting 220.1 MPH. I begin my braking at the 510m mark, and by 645m, I've decelerated to 44.57 MPH. If I work using linear decelleration, that's done in 2.376 sec, and works out to -3.99. However, telemetry shows the instantaneous deceleration to peak at -5.32 g's. So I'm guessing I'm decelerating before the first S turns in under two seconds. And based on the slope of the acceleration curve, I'm guessing the car probably could be stopped in another 10m. To keep that in perspective, according to telemetry, while I'm still decelerating at -1.0 g's, I'm initiating a 2.57 g (80 deg.) right-hand turn, I straighten out and accelerate to 61.86 MPH, and initiate a 100 deg. lefthand turn (2.46 g's), which leaves me in a 39.35MPH hole. Apex of the right-hand turn, to apex of the left-hand turn is about 20 m.

Eat that Bugatti.

[ozzymandus]

I don't think I'll be trading in the ol' pickup, but it's nice to see they kept the cool little Bugatti grille.

[Fierce Allegiance]

Thanks for the ping. I saw this one in a car mag at my shrinks office a while ago. Sweet ride. They said it handled great as well as being fast.

One of the biggest challenges was how to cool the engine. Lots of power = lots of heat.

Next time I have a couple mil to spare, I'll look again, but for now, I'll stay w/ my 95 crown vic.

[SouthTexas]

Showed the write up on this car to wife in the doctor'f office the other day. Don't think the keys will be in my stocking. :(

[SouthTexas]

doctor'f = doctor's

[Fierce Allegiance]

C'mon, wifey not liking the style or the price tag?

[King Moonracer]

LOL...Perfect.....Still LOL while typing.