Zoooom

253 MPH and Still a Little Late

The Bugatti Veyron
is a superlative on wheels. But for VW, which spent six years and about
half a billion dollars, it may be obsession run wild.

By Dan Neil

Times Staff Writer

December 10, 2005

PALERMO, Sicily ? At 200 mph, the Bugatti Veyron pounds a beautiful,
howling hole in the sweltering haze hanging over the motorway.

This, the fastest production car in the world, is broad and low,
an enameled ellipse in a spiffy two-tone paint scheme. By comparison,
its now-vanquished supercar rivals, such as the Ferrari Enzo and
McLaren F1, are all edges and blades and angles, like F-16 fighter
planes or Japanese stunt kites.

The Veyron is not, strictly speaking, the fastest car I've ever
driven, but the one that's faster had a jet engine and a parachute. The
guardrail to my right is blurred into a dirty stream of quicksilver.
Houses fly by before my brain has time to register the word "house."

About nine seconds ago, I was dawdling at 100 mph. Then I squeezed
the throttle. The seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox clicked twice, the
engine took a huge lung-busting toke of atmosphere through its twin
roof snorkels ? and then things got interesting. Something slammed me
from behind and I realize it was the seat. Captain, it appears we have
fallen nose-first into a wormhole.

Two-hundred mph. And I'm not even in top gear.

? house?.

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

I've got a feeling this is due to be reviewed on Top Gear tomorrow night here in the UK.

That's absurdly fast - a sort of heavy version of the Ariel Atom.

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My site

About nine seconds ago, I was dawdling at 100 mph.

Should he really be writing while driving at such pant wetting speeds? :razz:

Yeah, I'll be watchin topgear myself.

Its 400km/hr, and thats with a limiter.

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"If you talk at all during this lesson, you have detention. Do you understand?"

• My yr11 Economics teacher

I'd probably s**t in my pants at that speed in any car, but I'd still want to feel it. :razz:

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''Everyone wades in s**t until they're competent enough to walk on it. Jesus style.''
Dystopia - Empires

Holy smokes that's fast. I wonder who could be in such a hurry?

When I need to get somewehere very quick I'll invent myself a
teleporter. More comfortable and less dangereous way to travell. cheers

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Never try to be perfect - just try it and make the best out of it

The marquee top speed for that car is 253 mph.

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

i have a 68 firebird 400 in my garage that runs like a striped ass ape....ive buried the needle in it (some years ago i might add, during the "folly of my youth" ) which tops out from the factory @ 160 mph indicated.....still had about a quarter of pedal stroke to go, when i basicly chickened out and shut it down.....solid car, kickass top end, and thats the closet ive come to s**tting myself without being shot at... :heee: havent done it since, and i wont.

my testes shrink up just thinking about it....

Doc B... :dodgy:

One of my friends is a race car driver. He routinely races over 200 mph. I just can't imagine doing that myself. One wrong move, and I'd be dead.

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

satchmo said:
One of my friends is a race car driver. He routinely races over 200 mph. I just can't imagine doing that myself. One wrong move, and I'd be dead.

You can do that at less than 1 mph. Forget to take out the trash just once and you'll see.

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There is no history until something happens, then there is.

yeah, but UD, theres a big difference between hitting the wall at daytona at 200 odd miles per hour, and being killed by your wife for running over the trash cans......

.......ummm..........on second thought, maybe not :heee:

Doc B... :dodgy:

I watched Top Gear last night, and the snippets of information about this car are really interesting:

• It costs the company ?5 million to make, but they sell it for ?800,000 - it's just made as a technical test<LI>It has 1000 horsepower<LI>It has 10 radiators and the engine is exposed<LI>The gear box itself is a feat of engineering, having to cope with the same forces as an F1 car and transfering that much horsepower to the road, and at the same time lasting 10-20 years and weighing about the same as a bag of flour<LI>It can beat James May in a plane

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My site

Loco said:
It can beat James May in a plane

Most cars can beat a plane from a standing start, and most light aircraft cant go as fast as that car's top speed anyway. Also, I'm pretty sure James May isnt a great pilot :razz:

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"If you talk at all during this lesson, you have detention. Do you understand?"

• My yr11 Economics teacher

Most roads don't let you travel at 254mph though wilson :biggrin: It was a
race from some place in Italy to London by the way, not along a runway
or something in case thats what you were thinking :smile:

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

It can go from zero to 60 mph in 2.1 second.

Now, that's impressive.

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

2.9 second, says Bugatti (Not that you'd notice while driving.)
It can get to 186mph in 14 seconds.

I want one (I <3 non-bug/Golf Volkswagen). I would never have to stop for a cop ever again. What are they going to do? Catch me?

Also because the car is electronically locked at a maximum of 400 km/hr (248mph) ... that electronic lock and be removed and the fuel injection timing can be more efficient ... the car could go 450 km/hr (280mph) with no trouble.

$1.3 million isn't much more than a Mclaren F1 ($1 million), Well, no, $300,000 is a lot, but if you're spending a million dollars on a car, it wouldn't be that much of a difference.

Still nowhere near the speed of sound :\

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Apparantly if you race a bugatti and a McLaren F1 to 200Mph, the Bugatti will win, even if the McLaren starts the race at 120Mph! Btw the Bugatti looks like this if no ones seen it-



.

I personally prefer this uber beast-



It's the Jag XJ220, another kinda experiment formed from thier F1/F2 car of the time with a nice body. Reaches about 220Mph, so not much slower. It also doesn't use quite so much fuel, need 8 radiators, or require a spoiler to keep it on the ground! On top of that it only costs less than ?200,000, rather than Bugatti and its ?841,000 (apparantly each Bugatti costs ?5million to make!)

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-[Better to be Honest than Kind]-

Yeah I can't say I'm a huge fan of the new Bugatti visually, but it's
not like you'd say ask for the receipt if you unwrapped one in Chrismas
morning :smile:

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

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Yeah I can't say I'm a huge fan of the new Bugatti visually, but it's
not like you'd say ask for the receipt if you unwrapped one in Chrismas
morning :smile:

lol

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:: Forceflow.be :: Nuclear Dawn developer

Yeah I can't say I'm a huge fan of the new Bugatti visually

It looks like a new BatMobile.

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge