In what distance would a Bugatti Veyron beat that Vauxhall dragster?

The Vauxhall using the same gearing it uses at the dragstrip to achieve the claimed times.

Aerodynamics would be a factor at some point

Gearing the same as it uses at the dragstrip.

There'a more to consider than just hp numbers. I think it's a safe assumption that the Vauxhall is an aerodynamic joke compared to the Veyron.

One of those lovely factlets about the Veyron is that if you start it from stationary and the Mac from 100mph they Bugatti still hits 200 first.

Could you translate this turn of phrase into American?

:-)

Do you mean against that Vauxhall? How do you figure the Vauxhall wins in a highway chase? If I understand correctly, you said your bike got slaughtered in a 1.5 mile dragrace with a top speed pretty close to what the Vauxhall is capable of in dragstrip trim. It would seem the Vauxhall's acceleration advantage is only up to a certain point.

That Veyron wouldn't have to hit anywhere near its top speed to beat that Vauxhall. At 180 the Vauxhall is sucking wind, the Veyron is accelerating hard. While the Vauxhall can go around 190, how long can it maintain it? And how stable is it going to be at that speed compared to the Veyron?

Eh?

I mean the veyron against the V

How do you figure the Vauxhall wins

because of traffic, bends, road works etc. In the real world there isnt many places you could get fast!

If I understand correctly, you said your bike got

Well we dont know. The veyron according to conventional wisdom and an aerodynamics calc wouldnt actually be able to catch the vauxhall anyway...

Err who knows what it can "maintain" - it has the power to go faster than the veyron anyway. Just.

And how stable is it going to be at that speed

Not very. Who said anything about stability?

>

An aerodynamics calc says a car purpose-built to go the better part of

300 mph has an aero *disadvantage* compared to a mass-produced passenger car from the '70's? He's got some mods on the Vaux body, but still.

It has the power and gearing to go a 1/4 mi about 2.5 secs faster - on a dragstrip on drag tires - ending up at just about its top speed if it's set up correctly as a drag car.

"What it can maintain" is certainly a crucial issue under the highway race scenario proposed. If you put taller gears in it to theoretically give it more top speed, as well as tires made for maintained speeds near or over 200mph it's going to lose a lot of that short-distance advantage. And pushing that brick any faster would be inviting disaster.

Also, unless we see a verified dyno test of that Vauxhall's engine, we've got only his word for it that it makes 2000hp. People are known to embellish such claims. And where is that engine making its power? Aren't the powerband characteristics of the engine important?

It's pretty obviously implied when talking about a highway race. There's probably as much $$ in just the high-tech suspension and hardware to keep that Veyron stuck to the road as that guy spent total on the Vauxhall dragster.

You say there's not enough distance to get to full speed - if it gets over 220 in 1.5 miles, doesn't seem he needs much distance to go plenty fast. Aren't there straightaways longer than that in Europe? That Vaux normally only needs to maintain that top speed for a couple of seconds before shutting down. A whole different game than going down the highway.

If that Veyron ever gets even with the Vauxhall at speeds like 120,

130, and I don't see any reason why he wouldn't, how do you figure he's not going to leave the Vaux in the dust when he's getting into his powerband and has at least another 120 mph in his back-pocket and isn't in danger of going airborn approaching and beyond 200?

With streetable tires, drag-race suspension, laughable aerodynamics, even with taller gears, I just don't see that Vauxhall looking like such a hero in a "highway chase" scenario vs the Veyron.

Btw, how does your bike compare to a Yamaha R1? There's video on YouTube of an R1 getting repeatedly, seriously smoked by a Veyron.

Any Bugatti can beat any Vauxhall. cuhulin

I have a married Irish lady friend (she is married to that Irish guy) who lives in Bognor Regis,England,West Sussex County,on the South coast of England.Earlier this year she got a brand new Vauxhall Estate company car to drive.She hates that car. cuhulin

Don't forget that the Veyron like the M5 is electronically limited to it's top speed, unofficially Bugatti techs say it will do the far side of 270 when de restricted but no one will make a road tyre that's up to it.

This one?

The original question, which I was trying to answer was "While the Vauxhall obviously would win in a 1/4 mile drag, how much distance do you think the Veyron would need to pass it assuming both left their foot in it? 1 mile? 2 miles?", so I simply assumed that this was being run on an arbitrarily long dragstrip. Anything else throws more unknowns into the mix and renders the problem entirely unto the realm of supposition, rather than that of wild extrapolation and randomly chosen googled data.

I'm suspect that an optimised dragster will hit the finish line as it reaches peak power in top gear, however the engine will undoubtedly rev beyond peak_power_rpm, and so the top speed will be higher than the trap speed - in a drag race you are interested in integral(integral(acceleration)) wrt time, i.e. minimising time, rather than hitting V_max. I don't think that it is unreasonable speculation to assume that it can run higher speed than the trap speed.

As to stability and control, I'm sure the veyron would be vastly better, as you say. If I had to pick one to throw down a real road, it'd be the Veyron, for certain.

Yup, true.

Lots and lots and lots. I did pretty graphs and everything :-)

I have no idea, but quite a bit. Even limited to 1.5G acceleration, as it would be on sticky road tyres, the vaux is going to accelerate much more quickly than the Veyron, because it has about 4 times the power:weight ratio. By the time the aerodynamics start to play a part, the Veyron is not accelerating VERY quickly, and will be a reasonable distance behind, so it will take him a while to catch up. I can't be any more specific without some hard data..

I think that was against a McLaren F1, but yes, the more aerodynamic vehicle eventually overtook the less aerodynamic one. I think 'trashed' is a slightly emotive word in the context - at 1.25 miles the McLaren would have been 'trashed' by the bike?

The BMW M5 can hit 200mph with 500Hp, so lets be conservative and say that the vaux needs 700Hp to do the same. From aero calcs, the Veyron needs about 490Hp. The acceleration is given by (engine power-drag power)/mass, so at 200Mph the vaux has an excess of 1500Hp to accelerate its ~1000kg, whereas the Veyron has ~500Hp to accelerate its 1700kg - at

200mph the vaux will accelerate 3 times as quickly as the Veyron!

I haven't seen it, but the Audi R8 has 420Hp and weighs 1600kg - the Veyron should be vastly quicker, especially at high speed.

The vaux, by a country mile.

Yo, listen up y'all. Noddy was this dude who rocked about in some, like, totally blinged-out, clockwork wheels down in Toyland.

*ahem* sorry, sorry. 'Noddy' was a series of books for children, written by Enid Blyton, and is used to mean 'simple' or in my case 'wildly inaccurate by dint of unjustified supposition'.

"very close" or "the two things are very similar"

Hmmm. On the top-gear vid, it was climbing very slowly to the 407km/h mark - it looked more like it was asymtoting to it's V-max than hitting a limiter. It certainly didn't look like it would ever get near 270.

Traffic

Noddy = err... I guess you have to be English for this one. A bit the same as saying something is 'Mickey Mouse'.

'Not a lot in it' = just as it sounds, not much difference.

No I was on a stock water cooled 136bhp rear wheel quiet Suzuki gsxr. Well it had nitrous fitted but was not being used. 10.3 quarter mile, 0 to 60 in about 3secs.

It wont reduce times by much and the increased final drive will actually help to put the power down as less torque gets delivered to the wheels but up to a higher speed. If it effected its quarter mile terminal speed by more than a few mph I would be amazed but it could ad say half a sec max to the time.

But it was a mclaren, and I was on a bike with low power to weight compared to the vauxhall!

Because both have a similar top speed potential but the vauxhall has much much better power to weight! It will accelerate TWICE as hard.

With the correct gearing of course it can do it.

Flat out it is. It has the power to weight of a moped with a fat bloke on it. The Vauxhall has about ten times that power to weight and double the veyron.

They punch it from

Its a slow low powered car. Put the veyron on the drag strip compare that to the vauxhall and you will see that its just driving off going on a shopping run.. Its a different world of performance.

We cant. But why not? My V8 nitrous sierra (was an old reps 1.6) with knackered suspension and Colway 205 60 13 remoulds would go 150 for mile after mile. Whats another few mph?

I dont think he quite gets how powerful and how hard this thing lauches and goes! Its accellerating harder at 150 than the veyron can off the line! May I suggest a trip to the drag strip and watch a few pro mods go. They run the same sort of times. Once you have had your idea of power recalibrated you will just see a veyron as a low powered streamlined car that does its 250 due only to good aerodynamics and a long 2 plus mile run up.

In your mind it seems to. Its really not a problem! It might not be as good as a veyron but that does not make it dangerous or unstable.

The vauxhall would absolutely murder the veyron under ANY speed range acceleration. Gearing allowing of course.

Means very close! noddy =

Think micky mouse tools or whatever!

A shattered vauxhall? Mmmm Not very likely now is it...

That is not what I ment: the car travelles at 200 Mph and is blown off line by a gust of wind. What happens? Or the car travelles at 200 mph and hits a bump. Does it take off?

:)

Then you think an endurance car is no different to a sprint car? A hillclimb-specific engine (a run takes about 60 sec) nothing diffent to a drag racer?

Last time I looked engines on dragsters weren't even that reliable in the sense that the real dragsters suffer regulary engine problems. It is just becasue the engine are but for 6-15 sec at full power that they survive, idem for transmissions.

I think that 1 minute or 60 seconds, will be allready a very very good estimation.

It doesn't do 300 miles on full power, never has but OK : 15 miles it is. At WOT the 15 miles are gone in 4 min 30... That if the fuel cell is standard which I doubt a lot.

Once again: there is a major difference between hitting topspeed a fraction of a second and then backing off compared to hitting topspeed and staying there.

The latter I know only from planes and there too engine life goes down in dramatic fashion, fuel and oil consumption go just the opposite.

Just to put it perspectif: 75% of the cost of the Veyron is justified because the car must remain safe at speeds above 200 mph.

Tom De Moor