Bugatti's Latest Veyron, Most Ridiculous Car on the Planet?

Wired has an amusing writeup that accurately captures the most recent ridiculous addition to Bugatti's automobile catalog. The $2.1 million Veyron sports over 1,000 horsepower, a 16-cylinder engine, and a top speed of 245 mph. The guilty conscience comes for free. "That same cash-filled briefcase could buy seven Ferrari 599s or every single 2009 model Mercedes. You could snap up a top-shelf Maybach and employ a chauffeur until well past the apocalypse. Hell, in this economy, $2.1 million is probably enough to make you a one-man special-interest group with some serious Washington clout."

Comments

Hell yeah!

[SirBitBucket]

I bet you could rack mount a couple servers in the trunk (1U). Fastest datacenter on Earth.

Top Gear Veyron goodness

[errittus]

Top Gear had an episode some time ago where they opened this beast up on the 5 mile+ straight at Volkswagen's German test facility. So damned fast - 407 kph!

From the episode: "At this speed, the tires will disintegrate in 15 minutes - That's ok, we've only got enough fuel for 12"

Re:Top Gear Veyron goodness

[Quiet_Desperation]

They also demonstrated the silliest thing about it, or any 200+ MPH car... It takes quite a while to get to those speeds. You may get 0-60 in 3 seconds, but the acceleration drops off rather rapidly. About the only place you can get a car like that up to speed *is* a test track with an enormous straight.

I think it must have been 8 miles or more because they commented that the far end was out of sight due to the Earth's curvature!

A guy tried driving a super-Ferrari (an Enzo, I think) like that here in Southern California a few years back. yeah, You guessed it. Mr. Supercar? Meet Mr. Telephone Pole. Sadly, the dumbass driving it survived.

Another show mentioned how fragile they are. When they are featured on a show or test track, supercar makers box them up like ancient relics and ship them there. Contrast to the episode with the McClaren SLK that was simply driven to the filming site from two countries away.

Re:Top Gear Veyron goodness

[JWSmythe]

    I can testify to that. My car is right around 4 seconds 0-60. I can jump ahead of just about anyone up through about 120mph. Pushing through 140, it's pushing. I've only accelerated just through 150, but ran out of road. A lot of the high speed numbers are worthless, because they'll never be reached.

    They say in the article, "...you can outrun not only the 5-0's cruisers, but their helicopters, too. If they wanna catch you, they're gonna have to dust off Airwolf...", but that's sensationalized journalism. Like I said, I've been up through 150mph, or 220 feet per second. Driving along at a mile every 24 seconds has it's drawbacks, like a 5 mile stretch takes 118 seconds to cross. What was a nice long straight stretch of road suddenly becomes very very short. What should take 5 minutes to drive at the speed limit is gone less than 2 minutes. God forbid that you're driving on land, where animals may wander across the road, or a car may come out of a side street. It's not like you're going to swerve without some serious side effects.

    I ran across a neat video on YouTube where a motorcycle driver was running from the police. Sure, they couldn't keep up, because he'd zip away in no time. Max air speed for an good unladen police helicopter (no extra equipment, seats, and minimal fuel) is 150mph. If they're carrying their normal equipment and enough fuel to follow with, that drops. He was doing over 150mph, and the helicopter kept up pretty nicely. Why? Because despite the fact that he was able to pull away from the helicopter at points, the helicopter didn't have to follow the road, encounter traffic, nor slow down for intersections. He was driving fast, he wasn't suicidal. A bend in the road creates a shorter intercept route for the helicopter to follow.

    If they're really after you, it doesn't matter how fast you're going. They may radio ahead and say to set up a roadblock, which sometimes can be avoided, but it's hard to avoid a shoulder to shoulder nail strip. 4 flat tires will keep you from getting away, no matter how fast your car was. That nail strip can mean a fatality when you hit it, if you're going way too fast.

    Do I speed as a daily thing? Nope. I cruise right about the speed limit, depending on conditions. My high speeds have been on tracks, where they belong. I know my car is really fast, so I don't have to prove it to anyone. Even if it's a kid with a Honda Civic and a coffee can for a muffler. :) I'm at the "why bother" phase of my life. Do I need to burn up extra fuel just to prove that I can go faster than him? Not really. It's not worth wasting my fuel, and potentially getting a ticket (or worse).

   

Re:Top Gear Veyron goodness

[Oblong_Cheese]

They would not have used the launch control (a computer-controlled system that primes the engine and gearbox for the quickest start off the line) in the Veyron - if they had, there would have been no point to the film.

The Veyron does 0-100Km/h (approx. 0-61mph) in about 2.5 seconds. The McLaren F1 does the same in 3.2 seconds.

While the F1 is indeed an engineering marvel, and probably much more enjoyable to drive on a race track than the Veyron, it is clearly outclassed, though not surprisingly given the large age difference.

Re:Top Gear Veyron goodness

[Anonymous Coward]

No... If acceleration is what you're after, at a fraction of the price, what you want is a Caterham 7 Superlight R500.
http://www.caterham.co.uk/assets/html/showroom/superlightr500.html

0-60mph 2.88 seconds
Power-to-weight 520bhp-per-tonne
Top Speed 150mph.

Under GBP40k.

I built its little brother (7RS150), with 0-60mph of 5 seconds, in my garage a couple of years ago. It's a very very very fun toy...

Guilty conscience?

[andytrevino]

What's the "guilty conscience" wisecrack for? This thing is not only incredibly cool, but if you can afford it, you already pay enough taxes to support a small mid-American city. Get over it.

Re:Guilty conscience?

[andytrevino]

Still, the sales tax alone on it is $155,500 at 5.5% which I'd pay if I bought this thing here in Wisconsin*, unless you're somehow going to smuggle it into the country to not pay sales tax, which would prevent you from properly registering it.. what good is a $2,100,000 car if you can't drive it anywhere?

* Hah -- like a Bugatti dealer would ever set up shop in Wisconsin. :)

I'm awfully tired of this jealous-of-people-with-money attitude. They probably earned it. More than likely they contribute vast sums to charitable causes so they don't have to pay taxes on those sums come death or tax day. If you want the cool stuff they get to have and experiences they get to have, earn it; don't get your jollies off telling THEM what to do with it.

Re:Guilty conscience?

[andytrevino]

No, there is not anything wrong with spending 2 million dollars on a car. It's YOUR money, so if you can afford to and choose to spend 166 years of minimum wage earnings on it, be my guest. Jealousy will get you nowhere closer to owning one of your own -- or, if you're like me, you can just ogle the Bugatti while you drive off in your '05 Ford Escape which gets acceptable gas mileage, handles great in the snow, and did not add $155,000 to the government balance sheets to support welfare recipients, public schools, the police and so on.

Re:Guilty conscience?

[onescomplement]

Actually, rich people are the lousiest charitable givers. Those below the poverty line in the US give a much higher percentage of their earnings to social good. I've been on several boards for charitable organizations and trying to pry money out of rich people directly is impossible. If they have a trust set up, you have a much better chance. I'd sit in the office of one of my causes and folks would walk in off the street and give us crumpled up $5 and $10 bills because the organization helped a friend or relative out.

Re:Guilty conscience?

[tsa]

You can say that to everyone who owns a car.

Re:Guilty conscience?

[timeOday]

We are not talking about "professional homes," but rather the super rich. Somebody with 5 million dollars is rich. You might get that rich being, say, a renowned neurosurgeon. 5 million is a lot, enough to afford a nice $200K Ferrari, but a $2M Veyron? No. So we are talking about people with hundreds of millions of dollars here. Even if they marry some hard-working professional worth $5M, it would increase the poorer spouse's spending power by about a factor of 100 - i.e. a negligible fraction of their newfound spending power was earned. So, when you talk about people buying a $2M car, you are talking about perhaps 10,000 eligible buyers worldwide (there are about 1000 billionaires worldwide), most of them later in life (look at the Forbes top 10). You want us to believe a significant percentage of those people are marrying each other?

And again, this is without considering heirs at all. The two richest women in America, for instance, are Wal Mart heirs who had nothing to do with the business.

Re:Guilty conscience?

[Gordonjcp]

This is why forklift trucks run on gas, and why cars which have been adapted to run on gas are so much cleaner. Since the optimum mixture is somewhat lean, there is always a certain amount of excess oxygen in the exhaust and no carbon monoxide. On gas, the emissions are predominantly carbon dioxide and water.

Because the optimum mixture for petrol is somewhat rich, you get quite a lot of carbon monoxide and a certain amount of soot.

Re:Yeah but....

[therufus]

More importantly, at 2.1 million dollars, will it blend?

It's the ultimate halo car

[SuperBanana]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_vehicle
The whole point of a halo car is to demonstrate engineering prowess and/or get PR for the company. It certainly worked; Bugatti went from being a maliase-y brand nobody had heard of, to a brand almost any 18 year old kid and any car enthusiast worth his salt knows about. It wouldn't surprise me if Bugatti make a big move into a (obviously lower) luxury market very soon, cashing in on the recognition they've earned.

Re:If I ever see..

[Goldberg's Pants]

Why? The Veyron is an incredible piece of engineering. Bugatti sell them at a LOSS if I recall. The workmanship is astounding.

I ever caught you keying ANY car, I'd break your fucking legs. People who key cars are UNIVERSALLY assholes.

But then you're too big of a pussy to post with your real account, so clearly you ARE an asshole.

Re:If I ever see..

[MichaelSmith]

Working in Singapore a year ago I noticed that there were a lot of Lamborghinis around. Its a bit silly because their highest speed limit is 80km/h and the island isn't big enough to get the thing to top speed anyway.

Apparently the thing to do is wake up at 4 AM, cross the causeway into Malaysia and point the car at Kuala Lumpur. Two hours later you are having breakfast in KL. The drive back would be after the traffic cops have woken up for the day so you take a bit longer for that leg, and carry some cash

Re:A bit overblown

[Goldberg's Pants]

"TFA waffles on about how Bugatti had to work on the structure to make it survive at 250 miles per hour, but honestly, speeds like that are just routine for twin engined aeroplanes."

Not on tarmac they aren't. You're neglecting the fact that the only thing keeping the Veyron on the road are four bits of rubber. Let's see the plane this is supposedly routine for do 250mph along the ground for any length of time. What an utterly ridiculous statement. You may as well say "The Space Shuttle does more than that easily!" It'd be as equally stupid and irrelevant.

Do 500mph in a plane, then do 100mph in a car. Which was the rougher ride? Stressed "a bit more"? Are you insane?

As a racer I'm just honestly astounded you'd make such a wrong headed comparison. I am just overwhelmed here with all the reasons you are so incredibly misguided.

As for your second equally demented paragraph, the Veyron is ROAD LEGAL! None of the cars you're talking about are.

Good god it's amazing you can dress yourself. Do you accidentally find yourself trying to wear bananas on your feet? Or perhaps a melon instead of a tie? Because honestly, your comparisons make me wonder what else you get so easily confused by. If you think the Veyron is comparable to a plane then...

I'm sorry, I'm just utterly baffled by you. But then if you read this you're probably going to try and type your reply on a bowl of soup. After all it's similar to a keyboard.

Bugatti Veyron = 27 MP3's

[Anonymous Coward]

Kinda puts it in perspective..............

Finance a car loan

[unlametheweak]

Hell, in this economy, $2.1 million is probably enough to make you a one-man special-interest group with some serious Washington clout."

It's a car well suited to bankers who profited from the financial scandals and government bailouts.

My question

[Anonymous Coward]

What advantages does this motor car have over, say, a train -- which I could also afford?

In real units...

[david.given]

...1000 horsepower is 750 kilowatts. Your average house electricity supply is 30 kilowatts. A single wind turbine, the really big kind they use in wind farms, generates about 1500 kilowatts.

1000 horsepower is a lot of power.

Article Quality and Wired

[bmo]

The days are certainly gone when Wired used to have people like Neal Stephenson write for them.

Wired used to be cool and had decent writers. Wired used to be something to /read/.

Now? We have this. A fluff advertisement column, but not only that, nothing about the tech end at all. Nothing about the engineering or anything really interesting except that it's a fast car and costs a lot of money. It's also written in the style of a high-school newspaper or Slashdot summary. Wired has become Maxim, but without the girls.

--
BMO

Re:Yeah but....

[Rei]

does it run linux?

I don't know about the Veyron, but the Tesla Roadster does. I have one of the logs right here. 2.6.11.8-1.3.0, BusyBox 1.00, 32 megs ram, Philips-LPC2294 CPU, etc.

Re:Yeah but.... 1/4 the price alternative

[fractoid]

Well the same holds true of lower end vehicles so I wouldn't be surprised. I remember an article (I think MOTOR or DRIVER magazine) between a Porsche GT2 and litre superbike, with the result of the $18k bike being very even with the $200k Porsche. Of course, your life expectancy on the bike is slightly lower... another similar article here.

Then again they have different target markets. The guy on the bike got to demonstrate his incredible ballsiness, whereas the guy in the Porsche put some tunes on the stereo, flipped on the aircon and went to pick up his girlfriend. :)

I did the top speed in an S4..

[cheros]

I have an unrestricted S4, and removing the limiter is the only mod it has ever had.

Now it is 4 years old, I finally had the time and safe place to test the top speed (well, "top" as in "got clamped by the rev limited instead"), and I got to a GPS measured 268 km/h before the rev limiter kicked in. It was somewhere in Germany, I happened upon this 5km stretch of perfect viewable road by chance (and had to drive another 5km before I found a chance to return and USE it :-).

Overtaking a row of 8 (I think) police vans at 220 km/h on cruise control during the run up was just a bonus (you know you're legal but still the nervousness remains).

There is, however, a good argument why you won't do this for long even if it's entirely legal and you find a safe bit of road to test. With a fuel consumption of just under 60 (yes, SIXTY) liters per 100km you will need a MUCH bigger tank to get from A to B. It's ridiculously uneconomical to push such a large amount of steel over 4 wheels against the wind.

Having said that, it's also good fun annoying BMW drivers who don't seem to know that "S4" means "brutally large factory sports tuned V8 in front, gripping on 4 wheels on sport suspension". Fnarr fnarr..

Conversions (all approx):
268 km/h = 166.5 mph
60l/100km = 1.67km/l, 4.7 MPG(UK) or 3.9 MPG(US)

Final notes for wannabees: I have had extensive high speed training. Don't try this stuff unless you're (a) stone sober and in top physical condition, (b) are 100% sure of the condition and capabilities of your car (and even then), (c) on location where such speeds are legal and (d) can do so without causing any risk to other road users (on circuit is even better) - and that's after doing some test runs.

Play on player

[e2d2]

As a younger man I used to get very upset about the gap between rich and poor, pointing to this type of excess as an example. But having accepted it as an adult, the world is not fair, I actually enjoy seeing this kind of insanity. If the rich want to blow their money on what amounts to "fluff" then so be it. We should be encouraging them every chance we can. It's when they horde it away that truly screws the poor. There's a sucker born every minute, at least with the Bugatti you get a truly well crafted machine that will be rare for the rest of your life and on and on. This machine will also appreciate in value, because like I said, there's one born every minute. If you want to piss your hard earned (or not) money, then who am I to stop you. Play on player. But bear in mind, it's still just a car. One awesome fucking car.

Re:If I ever see..

[FreakyGreenLeaky]

hmm, you must be a have-not. I'm sure you can afford to own a notebook, right? In that case, by your childish have-not logic, you deserve to be butt-hole dry-fucked by a night prowler, then have your notebook stolen.

You deserve it at the very least.

Why is it that people with the wherewithal who simply live their lives are branded as cunts who deserve to be robbed, killed, sneered at and have there decent piece of engineering keyed by pimply-faced have-nots?

I suggest to you, Anonymous Coward, that you are indeed an anonymous coward ashamed of your own simmering mediocrity. You are, furthermore, a fucking communist who bites the very hand that feeds it. Go join Osama bin fucking Laden and his bearded closet gays who enjoy destroying instead of building. You don't deserve to be part of a civilised society which aspires to build, improve, learn, live a productive and long life raising beautiful children and leave a legacy.

I'd like to thank you for reminding me that the world is full of little shits like you who do not deserve to be gainfully employed (I filter out your kind all the time when employing - your thin veneer of civility does not hide the pus in your soul). I enjoy superior engineering, the same way you enjoy your decently engineered notebook. Linus drives an old German merc (remember, these things are all relative) who, by your reasoning, has the money for it, and therefore deserves to have his beautiful piece of human engineering keyed, because hey, you can't afford one.

And please, don't blather about how you cannot compare an old merc to a Bugatti. If you do, then I'm sure you won't even hear the whoosh.

Re:Yeah but.... 1/4 the price alternative

[Tamran]

As a wise police officer once told me: "You can't outrun radio waves, son"

Re:Yeah but.... 1/4 the price alternative

[KahabutDieDrake]

I was told that once. My response did not win me any favors. You can't outrun them, but you can jam them.