World title fight: McLaren F1 v Bugatti Veyron / Can an SLR get a look-in?

formatting link
DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling

Reply to
Dori A Schmetterling
Loading thread data ...

When describing the Veyron this article mentions weight to power, but fails to talk at all about drag and lift. Road and Track published an article written by Gordon Murray in which he describes the extraordinary amounts of drag that had to be added to the Veyron in order to overcome the lift generated by the bug shaped design. It's that drag, which slows the Veyron to within shooting distance of the F1 even though it carries hundreds more horsepower. As for the SLR, I would guess that it wouldn't have a shot of beating either of these cars in acceleration or top speed or cornering. As a matter of fact in pure question of weight to power ratio, a Corvette Z06 is a better performer than a Mercedes SLR. The Porsche carrera GT could crush both the SLR and the Corvette, and be beaten by the two above. Having seen all but the Veyron up close and personal enough to check into their carbon fiber chassises, I would believe that between the GT and the SLR, the GT would detroy the SLR, but I will never drive any of them. Not just because I would prefer to own a house than a car, but because I do not believe in super cars. It is purely a personal opinion, but for me super cars are too removed from the utilitarian manners of a road car. They are refined to the point of silly much like thorobreds. I'm a draft horse kind of guy. I respect these over the previous super cars like the F40 and F50 for being able to be driven in traffic and on normal streets, but they aren't my cup of tea.

Reply to
Hazey

So next time you run to the 7-11 for a jug of milk you would just hate to be driving a Veyron?

more than 75 miles out of a tank of gas from the car so really it is only good for going to parties and exotic romps.

Still wouldn't kick it out of the driveway for that.

.
Reply to
greek_philosophizer

Saw the Veyron (stationary, on display) at a motoring event in London a few months ago (MPH '05). Didn't have a chance to get a good look at it as I had to rush home, but I thought it ugly (despite it having bags of that well-known aphrodisiac, power).

Maybe it was the thought of that Grand Canyon of a hole in the wallet it would cause that put me off but, no, I would not kick it off the driveway if someone put it there...

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling

Reply to
Dori A Schmetterling

I would not "hate" to drive the Veyron. I think that I would not be happy to drive the Veyron. It would be sitting there wanting to go, and where could I take it to go? Nowhere. I would have trouble finding a track where I could really open it up. I would hate the fat feeling that it has, what the above article and others that I have read have referred to as distance from the feel of the road. I would rather see that set up in a luxury sedan where I could sense the luxury element of too much power. In a sports car, I would get twitchy wanting to use it. I had a similar problem driving the AMG CLK55 recently. It was too much power. I couldn't use that anywhere, and it started to annoy me. I wanted to put my foot down, but there was nowhere in my little world that I wouldn't run out of road immediately or be driving in such a dangerous manner that I would hate myself. I am a slow car guy even if that car is a sports car. My '67 Alfa has wonderful road feel, a decent top speed, good acceleration, tremendous balance between acceleration, handling, braking. It feels great to drive and I can push around with a heavyish foot without causing trouble since it only has a 1.6 litre engine. I think that I wouldn't "kick" the Veyron out of my driveway, but I would sell it if it showed up on my doorstep and buy a lotus Elan (and a house to put it in). It reminds me of the Jaguar XJ-220 (or whatever that super expensive super car was that they built in the early nineties). That car failed because it didn't make a connection between the driver and the road. I think that the Veyron will have the same problem. It is something which the Carrera GT has, I think, avoided looking at the one that lives near me. I have no idea where the SLR falls into that spectrum. Whether it has a driver connected to the road or a driver insulated from the road. That is the question in which driving pleasure is determined for me, and for me personally, that question is answered at much, much less horse power and much, much less weight. What would you do with a Veyron if you had one? Could you use it?

Reply to
Hazey

Veyron production is limited to 300.

At 810K quid you would not sell many... Will they sell out the planned production run?

I expect that the VW car range will benefit from the development programme -- which doesn't address your question except in the sense that it is expected that almost nobody (out of the millions of 'luxury' car buyers) will buy a Veyron. It was more of a technical exercise and the CEO's ego trip.

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling

Reply to
Dori A Schmetterling

Hazey, I sure was pleased reading your well written comments. You not only summarized my thoughts and feelings about the Veyron but you also expressed them in a most enjoyable style.

I have seen the newest exotics here in Silicon Valley's showrooms and often wondered what would potential buyers do with them. They sure cannot show off their super cars' performance driving along on any of our congested freeways. Maybe at Laguna Seca, but then again, how would they dare to drive their one-of-a-kind engineering marvel to the speedway?

Reply to
Hernando Correa

I respect these over the previous super

Strange how peoples taste differs, out of all these cars listed if I ever had the opportunity Id buy the F40 simply for it's purity.

No electronics, manual gearchange, no radio, nothing in the way of creature comforts, it's a pure race car and it's designed as such and would be used for track days and the few times on a sunny day when you just wanted to go out for a drive for the hell of it.

Personally I also think it's one of the most agressively beautiful designs ever, but then it's really a race car, and all these others are actually road cars.

Money no object...my daily driver would be a 1989 Aston Martin V8 Vantage X-Pack, and the weekend car would be the F-40, but I'd not be able to stop there, I'd have garages full of late 50's and early 60's ferraris, Pinninfarina penned some of the most attractive cars ever built.

250GT california spyder 250GT SII pf spyder 410 superamerica SIII

Ok I can stop daydreaming now. But having thought about it, I'd never be inclined to buy one of these modern Hypercars, I'm more intersted in how the car looks than how fast it goes. I think about them like many peple think about art.

James Dyson (the vacuum cleaner guy) does this very thing, instead of art he collect cars, has an enourmous lit covered area with a single pane of glass from his living room where He parks one of his car collection, like changing the painting on the wall every now and again...I totally got that.

But most of the time you'll find me on the inside lane pottering along and letting the rush pass me by.

Alan M

Reply to
Alan Mudd

I couldn't agree with you more. This car was all about the CEO's ego trip. Certainly there was very little business case for it. Even less than there have been for other million dollar super cars like the F1, SLR or Carrera GT. My feeling is that the Veyron will not sell out the planned production run, except perhaps at steep discounts, simply because it fails to make a connection, but then I am not the target market who might perhaps see something that I don't. I also agree that the development project should reap benefits for Bentley, Lamborghini in the short term then Audi and VW a little further down the road. There are benefits to the project from an engineering stand point. I believe that there may also be a benefit in corporate oversight since the current financial situation at VW was caused by this and similar projects (read Phaeton) and that the financial situation pushed their board to dig around into a messy operation that needed cleaning up. Perhaps that will be the best benefit for VW. Interesting discussion though. Thanks

Reply to
Hazey

Thanks for the kind comments. I don't think that the Veyron would perform as well as it should on the track, and that it could be ass kicked in the corners due to its rather heavy weight making cornering a little more difficult than a lighter car even though its power is so great. I also wonder what kind of snap the acceleration would have. I used to think that no one raced cars this expensive . . . then I went to an Italian car event sponsored by the Ferrari club of America. There were a lot of those cars missing almost all of their paint from sand blasting of the nose. They get raced. F1s get raced. I'm sure that someone will try to get a Veyron running around the track. Actually, rip the luxe equipment out of an SLRF, and you might really have something there too. That is something that I would enjoy to watch. Cars like that running down the track against one another. I wouldn't want to drive, but I think that watching them would be more fun than most motorsport races.

Reply to
Hazey

I understand what you are saying about the F40 being a pure race car, and I can respect that. I have a friend who used to sell super cars in the North Eastern US. He told me that the F40 was the car none of the sales people wanted to touch. It was too hard to handle. The car would stall at any slow speed maneuver. To move it around the lot, you had to slip the clutch or it would either take off or stall (they mostly moved it with a rolling dolly). You're absolutely right. It's a race car. The other thing about it is that it is very, very hard to drive. The last article that I read about it being driven at speed was in Automobile magazine about two years ago. The professional driver that they hired to drive it spun it out. Didn't hurt it, but he had a great deal of trouble with the turbo transition as have many drivers. I'll say this though. When it was built it was the absolute furthest the technology could be taken. It is a pure sports machine. The Aston is an inspired choice. I love those things.

I'm guessing you're English? I lived in Birmingham for a while, and at one point while going back to visit a friend he took me down town to check in a very dirty window at some old Astons. There was a DB4 DB5 and next to them a Gulf kit Ford GT40. The GT40 was the one that won Le Mans twice two years in a row. I was in awe. My friend thought that it was a kit car. I had to send him some articles to set him straight. It was a lovely thing, but for me . . . it's back to the Mazda on Monday, and my '72 Mercedes sedan is currently getting repainted and some minor body work to set it back to newish. I can't wait. I have owned the car for fourteen years now, and that's my love; not super cars, but great real cars that I can really wrap myself around. I think that that's the fun of cars. That everyone has what they love out of them from dreaming about super cars to thrashing about in beaters. There is something for everyone to enjoy with their car if they so choose, and it's just great fun all the way around.

Reply to
Hazey

formatting link
....Yup I'm English:-)

One of these please, sure it's expensive, but it's never going to deprecaite, infact, one like this will appreciate, in which case they don't look as much of a pipe dream as you think.

The GT40 was the F40 of it's day, a no compromise out and out GT racer, deafaningly load and outrageously fast but also incredibly beautiful through function.

Reply to
Alan Mudd

I have enough trouble with my 3.2 l car (having moved up from 2 l a few years ago), given the 70 mph speed limit in the UK. In that sense a Veyron would be a real frustration (never mind its ugly looks).

DAS

Reply to
Dori A Schmetterling

MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.