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."

Comments

Wonder about the mileage

[Arancaytar]

Not that it is relevant to anyone who could possibly buy this.

Re:Wonder about the mileage

[binarylarry]

It's for the oil sheik who has everything.

Re:Wonder about the mileage

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Except possibly taste...

Re:Wonder about the mileage

[AK Marc]

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.

Re:Wonder about the mileage

[binarylarry]

Honestly it looks more tasteful than I imagined.

I figured it would be shaped like a giant penis with death to america written on the windshield and really gaudy gems and gold chrome paint.

Re:Wonder about the mileage

[Dogtanian]

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.

So, yeah. Just another example of some "expensive" bulls**t being little more than a much less expensive thing with lots of gratuitous and tacky bling glued on. (*)

I mean, so what? I could make the "world's most expensive car" by gluing the Koh-i-Noor diamond to a 1998 Vauxhall Corsa. Who cares? It's still just a clapped-out Vauxhall Corsa.

Then again, it's entirely appropriate that this would be unveiled at the Dubai motor show, held in a location notorious for its gratuitous bling architecture such as the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world that needs trucks to remove all the crap because they don't even have the sewage infrastructure. Yeah, I'm impressed guys... come back when you can actually develop a supercar- or half-modern society- yourselves. This doesn't count.

(*) Ironically, the reason why so many products at this level of "premium" *are* just bog-standard kit with jewels glued on is because they couldn't *actually* afford to pay what it would cost to develop a car that was (e.g.) 25% faster than the current record-holder or a phone that was twice as fast and had twice as high resolution as the current best model... unless they were to sell in large numbers, which would entirely defeat the purpose. The development and tooling cost would render them ludicrously expensive even for the richest people in the world- many of these things only work out as being economic because they're intended to sell in the millions to us plebs. You can wave several million dollars at Intel, and you still won't get a processor that's twice as fast as their current high-end mass-market model. Ha ha, nice Corsa you've got there. :-P

Re:Wonder about the mileage

[Lumpy]

All of the Shieks LOVE america and americans. They are richer than anyone because of americans and our buying every drop of oil they can sell us.
It is the poor people that get upset as we support the ultra rich that kill the poor people for sport or do everything they can to keep them repressed and suppressed.

the price of ONE if these cars can elevate 300 Saudi poor to owning a modest home that is comfortable and has clean water and sanitation. But they will not do that. Instead they will drive this car and have their security torture and then kill any poor person who dares to steal one of the diamonds on the headlights.

Re:Wonder about the mileage

[Lumpy]

Except the Veyron is well built and a hell of a lot faster. This car is the prime example of gold plating a turd. Look at how they open the doors, they look as if they are ready to fall off. and the engine can not generate the HP they claim it can.

Re:Wonder about the mileage

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to lack any education in history.. 90% was exports to the USA back in the beginning when they all got filthy rich.

Re:Wonder about the mileage

[TheP4st]

Just because a customer makes you rich doesn't mean that you love or even respect them. More often than not, the opposite is true.

Something which Michael O'leary, the CEO of Ryan Air have proven again and again. A couple of sample quotes

“The European consumer would crawl naked over broken glass to get low fares.”

On passengers who forget to print their boarding pass: “We think [they] should pay 60 euros for being so stupid.”

"Anyone who thinks Ryanair flights are some sort of bastion of sanctity where you can contemplate your navel is wrong. We already bombard you with as many in-flight announcements and trolleys as we can. Anyone who looks like sleeping, we wake them up to sell them things."

Re:Wonder about the mileage

[Anonymous Coward]

Regardless, it's still the US military that props up the regime in Saudi Arabia that allows those oil sheiks to continue to sell of the natural resources of the country. The point still stands that they owe a big portion of their vast wealth to the US.

Re:Wonder about the mileage

[Fifth Earth]

With turbocharging and a large budget, you can make as much horsepower as you want from an engine. During the infamous turbo era of F1, engines with 1.5 liters of displacement were generating well in excess of 1000 HP.

That said, I don't think a 750 HP car can go 248 MPH without *serious* aerodynamic compromises. Look at the difference between the Koenigsegg with and without a rear wing as tested on Top Gear--the wing dropped the top speed by something like 20 MPH, but improved the track time significantly. There's a reason modern F1 cars actually top out at around 200 MPH--anything above that and you are better off using the extra power to generate more downforce.

Re:Luddites

[Joining Yet Again]

From reading Slashdot I understand that 3d printers can only be used to make guns.

if a sheikh had $3 million spare, why not charity?

[Joining Yet Again]

And none of these "HE EARNT IT FROM THE SWEAT OF HIS BROW" lies, please.

1) Hard workers are poor - smart workers are rich;

2) Arab oil magnates CERTAINLY didn't work for it.

Wow.

[Chris Mattern]

Some people just really have more money than they know what to do with, don't they?

And this ladies and gents, is why I'm a socialist

[rsilvergun]

I can think of a lot of better uses for $23.8 million dollars then some toy car...

Conspicuous Consumption

[wrackspurt]

Conspicuous consumption is the spending of money on and the acquiring of luxury goods and services to publicly display economic power â" either the buyerâ(TM)s income or the buyerâ(TM)s accumulated wealth. Sociologically, to the conspicuous consumer, such a public display of discretionary economic power is a means either of attaining or of maintaining a given social status.

Moreover, invidious consumption, a more specialized sociologic term, denotes the deliberate conspicuous consumption of goods and services intended to provoke the envy of other people, as a means of displaying the buyerâ(TM)s superior socio-economic status.

Nothing new.

"suicide-style doors"

[circletimessquare]

perhaps not the best marketing terminology for a vehicle, in that area of the world

Re:Suicide-style doors?

[AJWM]

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.

Features not that impressive

[Animats]

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."

Re:if a sheikh had $3 million spare, why not chari

[CRCulver]

In the meantime, they buy shit like this car instead of plowing the money back into their own society and peoples.

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.

You know, I've been wondering about this

[rsilvergun]

this is an old right wing attack on Socialism. It's based on the assumption that the ruling class 'earned' their wealth. It's easy enough to disprove just by pointing out the huge amounts of gov't contracts, free money and support nearly every one of the ruling class gets. Heck, last I heard the British still hand their Royalty something on the order of $100 million a year in free money. Basically, we all rely on 'other people's money', because money == labor in a modern society (like it or not there's not enough gold for it to be a standard) and sorta the entire point of having a Civilization is to work together for the common good. Otherwise it's just dog eat dog slavery.

The hard part isn't pointing all that out, it's boiling it down to a nice sound bite like Margaret did. Yeah, I can bang on all day about how we already produce enough food to feed 10 billion people, how automation is making the even 40 hour work week obsolete and about how single payer healthcare works better than the mess in North America. But that doesn't hit you in the gut like Margy's comment. It might be right (it is) but it doesn't _feel_ right. It doesn't appeal to common sense and emotion.

The problem socialists have is the right wing has simple answers to complex problems. Sure, they're self serving answers at best and horrifically wrong at worst, but given the choice it's much easier to get people to go along with them.