Jeremy Clarkson on the Bugatti Veyron. He gives it 12 stars (out of 5). Some choice quotes:
In a drag race you could let the McLaren get to 120mph before setting off in the Veyron. And you’d still get to 200mph first. ... engineers were horrified. But they set to work anyway, mating two Audi V8s to create an 8 litre W16. Which was then garnished with four turbochargers. ... somehow the giant had to be cooled, which is why the Veyron has no engine cover and why it has 10 — count them — 10 radiators. ... you can top 400kph. That’s 370ft a second. ... the length of a football pitch, in a second, in a car. ... and you will pull up from 250mph in just 10sec. Sounds good, but in those 10sec you’ll have covered a third of a mile. ... you come round a bend, see what appears to be miles and miles of dead straight road, bury your foot in the carpet and with a big asthmatic wheeze, bang, you’re instantly at the next bend ... From behind the wheel of a Veyron, France is the size of a small coconut. ... . It makes even the Enzo and the Porsche Carrera GT feel slow and pointless. It is a triumph for lunacy over common sense, a triumph for man over nature and a triumph for Volkswagen over absolutely every other car maker in the world.
etc. His review is short but fascinating, because he talks a bit about the kinds of forces that are at play around a car going 200+ mph. The wind, for example, is enough to lift a jumbo jet into the air. And the veyron not only handles all that, it apparently does it smoothly (though not quietly). It seems the ultimate realisation of the sort of Audi approach to performance, which is using lots of technology to make everything work perfectly (as opposed to, say, the Lotus approach to performance, which is to keep everything as light and simple as possible). Anyway, holy crap.
Categories: cars
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