Slashdot Mirror
First Arab Supercar Costs $3.4 Million, Has Diamond-Encrusted Headlights
cartechboy writes "If you're looking for bling, you can always count on Dubai. At the Dubai Motor Show this week, Lebanon-based W Motors unveiled what is billed as the world's first Arab-built super car. The Lykan Hypersport incorporates jewels and precious metals in its construction, suicide-style doors, and an interactive holographic display system. (Yes, drivers will be able to adjust radio volume via a holograph.) The 750 horsepower car accelerates to 60 mph in just 2.8 seconds and has a top speed of 245 mph. The cost: $3.4 million, but owners will also receive a Cyrus Klepcys watch, said to be valued at around $200,000. W Motors plans a whopping 7 units for production."
It looks to have a modified version of the 911 engine, so probably not too bad. Most "supercars" like this are Porsches or Ferrari/Lamborghinis with a body kit, sometimes an engine swap as well. This looks like a Lambo with a Porsche engine. And bling. With some high tech gadgets for electronic bling.
In addition to RUF, several other notable firms are aiding the development of W Motors’ two cars. The list includes independent vehicle manufacturer and auto parts supply giant Magna Steyr, Italian design house StudioTorino and reborn Italian coachbuilder Carrozzeria Viotti.
Well, maybe not an Italian base, but hired the people that design them. The next question I'd ask is where it's built. But I couldn't determine that from the skim through TFA.
Learn to love Alaska
Suicide doors are doors with the hinges at the rear, so that it's "suicide" to open them if the vehicle is moving at any speed. In a regular car, the slipstream will tend to push the doors closed. With suicide doors, the slipstream tends to rip the doors fully open. If you're not belted in (the term dates to before mandatory seatbelts), and holding onto the door handle, you're likely to get yanked out too.
-- Alastair
From the video, the door hold-up mechanism needs work. When they open the "suicide doors", which rotate backwards and upward, it looks like the counterbalancing system isn't quite right. The demonstrator has to adjust the door to keep it open, and then it shakes.
There is a web site for the company with more specs. The engine is a 6-cylinder boxer type, which seems undersized for the claimed performance. Most supercars have from 8 to 18 cylinders.
Surprisingly, it's not an all-wheel drive vehicle. Most supercar-class sedans are. I'm surprised they can get that acceleration with rear wheel drive only. There are rear wheel drive race cars that can do it, but sedan-sized cars usually need all-wheel drive to get enough traction. The rear tires aren't especially large. There's nothing like Formula I aerodynamics to get huge levels of downforce. I wonder if this thing's claimed acceleration just reflects performance on a dynamometer.
No active suspension, either. That's a real problem with supercars - if they're low enough to go fast, they're too low to go anywhere. See Top Gear's evaluation of the Bugatti Veyron, where it takes them an hour and wooden blocks to get it out of a driveway.
Maintenance: "a team of qualified W engineers will fly to anywhere in the world to service your Hypercar or to help with any problem you might encounter with the Lykan at any given time."
You seem to lack any education in history.. 90% was exports to the USA back in the beginning when they all got filthy rich.
The Gulf Arab states are massive examples of the state "plowing the mony back into their own society and peoples". If you are a native, life is good: free universities, high-salary jobs that don't require much work, all kinds of subsidies. It is the migrant workers from mainly the Indian Subcontinent that have it bad, but even the simplest UAE native enjoys a very high quality of life.
Your vision of poor masses held down and turned against Israel and the US may hold to some degree for Saudi Arabia or pre-revolutionary Syria, but it does not hold for the welfare states of the Gulf.
two words: fungible commodity.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."