The
Bugatti Veyron, according to Jeremy Clarkson on last night's
Top Gear, may well be the Concorde of cars. So Clarkson is a man prone to hyperbole, but this time the facts might just back him up. A throw-away remark from VW boss Ferdinand Piëch became the informal design brief. A 1000 horsepower car capable of the north side of 400kph/250mph. It
looks futuristic, but has
the stats to match. 0-60mph in 2.5 seconds. In an acceleration race with a McLaren F1 (the previous fastest supercar), the Veyron can give the F1 a head-start to 120mph, but will still beat it to 200mph. At 250mph, the 100 litre fuel tank will empty in 12 minutes, and you can brake to stand-still in just ten seconds (albeit covering the length of four football pitches in the process). The car will set you back most of UK £1,000,000 but that's barely an indicator: the few that exist are being sold at loss because they "just wanted to see if they could". With an industry facing shifting priorities, there may never be another super-car quite like this.
posted by nthdegx
on Dec 12, 2005 -
77 comments
Sure, we all know the story about how Detroit developed, and then kept under wraps, a 100mpg carburetor is
false. However, affordable 80mpg family sedans
are real: behold the
Supercar! They are the results of a nearly decade-long partnership between
The Big Three and the Clinton administration. However the program was quietly shelved last June, the victim of the Bush administration, and corporate backpedaling. Read the whole sordid tale
here.
[use username/password for login] In the meantime, you'll have to settle for one of
these.
posted by thewittyname
on Dec 13, 2002 -
22 comments
