Crazy

[Tleg93]

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Volkswagen's latest product probably won't be very good on gas and it has a rather high price tag. But that hasn't stopped a handful of people from putting down payments on the car before production started earlier this month.

Each Bugatti Veyron 16.4 will cost an estimated $1.24 million, according to media reports. For that, buyers will get an all-wheel-drive two-seat sports car with a lightweight carbon-fiber body and 16-cylinder engine capable of producing 1,001 horsepower.

VW purchased the Bugatti name in 1998, according to a report in the industry newspaper Automotive News Europe, and introduced a concept version of the Veyron at the Tokyo auto show the following year.

It has taken the intervening six years to perfect the car, according to the Automotive News report and others, and there had been doubts that the car would ever actually be sold. In a 2003 public debut at Laguna Seca Raceway in California, a prototype Veyron spun out of control.

In 2003, according to Automotive News, the car still suffered from two major problems: The enormous engine tended to overheat and the car, capable of top a speed of well in excess of 200 miles per hour, was unstable at high speeds. Several reports have placed the car's top speed at about 250 miles per hour.
The Bugatti name originated with a company that built high-performance cars from 1910 to 1956. Bugatti now operates in the same Alsace region, now part of France, in which the original Bugattis were made.

The company announced that it will build a four-door version of the car in the future, according to a report on Edmunds.com's Inside Line Website.

Open a Christmas club account.

[BAC5.2]

For 1.24 Million dollars, I had BETTER be able to go 250mph, and be 3 years younger at the end of the 1/4 mile!

[Tleg93]

Lol, if anything you'd be three years older in this car if it's as unstable as they say. 250 mph is a bit fast to drift.

[tris91ricer]

Forget younger or older, it sounds like you'd be lucky to be alive!

Damn germans, they're always trying to kill us or something.

[evolutionmovement]

This is the lamest marketing excercise yet from the Germans. No surprise VW has given it to us. Of course it took them long enough! I saw one of these last year at Lime Rock ... not impressed.

Pagani Zonda anyone? 250 mph is academic for kids in elementary school to trump each other during lucnh time conversation. The Zonda is incredible and impecably well built. Even the Mercedes engine isn't enough to have kept me from falling in love with it.

Steve

[AWD_addict]

I bet a Zonda outhandles the Veyron by a wide margin.
Certainly a car more to be seen driving than to drive.
And why would anyone pay over 1.2 million for a VW?

[douglas vincent]

To go 240 mph only takes a certain hp. More importantly it takes gearing and body style. A chevy 350 is more than capable of making the hp.

Fuck,

Give me 1.24 million and I bet I could build a 240 mph car.

It would use two flat fours of course.

[scottzg]

Whats impressive about this car is that once you consider the heft it would have to have (isn't it like 4000 and change?), coupled with the downforce, coupled with the friction of the road, the tires must be exposed to an incredible amount of heat and stress. I'm not sure i'd want to go 240mph in a car.

I'm sure the buyers are getting it for the collectability.

A zonda can't touch 240mph.

Dammit, this car is FRENCH!

[greg donovan]

this reminds me of the jaguar supercar fiasco from the early 90s.

[entirelyturbo]

I don't care what anyone says, the McLaren F1 is still king in my book, and that isn't because me and all my friends loved it in 8th grade either.

There is no car that has had more passion and attention to detail than the McLaren F1. EVERYTHING about it has a purpose, from the plasma-coated windshield to the 24k gold engine bay.

[professor]

I'm with subyluvr

light weight cannot be replaced, I'd probably have more fun in a Lotus Elise than this overpriced porker

it may not out-accelerate the mclaren, which was 600hp and 2100 lb if I recall correctly

[evolutionmovement]

VW will actually change the tires for you if you want to do the top speed. The standard tires won't do it and the top speed ones are probably unsuitable to road use.

Bugatti (the car) was originally French. This has nothing to do with it. I can't imagine Ettore and Jean liking it at all.

Also, the one I saw was fenced off by the snobbiest security I've ever seen. I don't even know why they brought it other than to maybe prove the car existed in some form? I wonder if it even ran. I'll gove it this: it's smaller than I imagined, but that tells nothing of density.

The Zonda prototype I saw was better built than maybe any car I've seen and was displayed openly by friendly (and hot) Italian girls. And it costs half as much. Looks are subjective, but I thought the Bugatti was ugly with some interesting details and the Pagani beautiful in that outrageous F40/Lamborghini Countach sort of way (not the 250 GTO, XKSS, or, hell, Bugatti 57SC kind of way) and, again, with interesting details. It's what a supercar should be IMO. The Veyron is just an overpriced exercise in small-penis compensation.

The Zonda is also pretty light, though not as light as the McLaren.

Steve

[entirelyturbo]

Many of us around here aren't real big VW fans. But when I say I'm not a VW fan, I mean it.

Porsche is a 100% separate entity from VW, so I can still like Porsche. Audi has some cool stuff, but nothing that I would go out of my way to own (besides, the hell possessed the Audi engineers to put the timing chain on the BACK of the V8 S4 engine??? If the engine won't fit, don't use it! The 2.7TT was fine!), Bentley I no longer have any interest in, Lamborghini... the Murcielago looks cool but there hardly is any other Lambo than the Countach or Diablo...

Just for everyone's reference, here is the Veyron:


And the Zonda (which I agree, Steve, this one looks much hotter):

[scottzg]

they used the v8 to discourage mod-monkeys. Same with the a6 2.7t.

porsche and vw have always been 'related,' even if each is independant of one another officially. I like porsche too, even if they aren't the most reliable critters.

That pic makes the veyron look like a hatch.

[BAC5.2]

If the engine won't fit, don't use it!

Nonsense! That's all the more reason to use it!

I like the Koenigsegg CCR (I have a special place in my heart for the initial concepts, but the CCR gets down and dirty) a little better than the McLaren. Why? Because Christian Von Koenigsegg is a regular guy. He built an incredible car. AND, instead of having a secretary sign e-mails from him, they write them for him (and say it). I e-mailed the company, just saying how inspiring his story was, and how innovative the design was, and was asking stupid little kid questions ( I was like 15 when that car first went to prototype), and asked how he got into cars. I never expected a reply. The next day, my e-mail was answered in length. I was stoked.

The CCR is faster than the McLaren (It ran 387.87 KM/H). 806hp, and 2700lbs. Heavier than the McLaren, sure, but it has ABS, Leather seats, a radio, more than one seat, air conditioning, and a host of other amenaties (and if carried over from the original design, a set of matched luggage that fits exactly in the storage space). It's a cool car.

http://www.supercars.net/PicFetch?pic=2 ... _ccr-1.jpg

[corsair]

Hah, saw the CCR on Top Gear once, we posted about it, The other big advantage of the CCR is that unlike the McLaren it'll be in production and it can be bought to order, correct me if wrong but the F1 won't ever be produced again.

[entirelyturbo]

They produced 100 McLaren F1's, I believe production years were 1994-1998...

[AWD_addict]

I heard the reason they put a V8 in the S4 was to reduce the reliability problems of the 2.7.