At $2 million, the Bugatti Veyron is a seriously expensive car with equally expensive maintenance – an oil change alone costs $21,000. The car’s not exactly a looker, either. But the Veyron is an exceptional kind of insane, and the world could use more of it.
Auto Express is reporting that a new, even faster Bugatti Veyron is in development.
The Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport has been put on sale in India with a price tag of $3.6 million.
So then, it’s a new year, but it’s also the dawn of a new decade (Admittedly, it has been for almost two months now, but a series of articles like this takes some time). So we decided to look back into the last decade and talk about some of the big events which happened. It was undoubtedly a great decade for cars, so there’s plenty of stuff to get through. There were also some bad moments though, and we’ll be discussing those as well over the next week or so with a series of articles.
Well, about time we say because it’s been quite a large gap between the Enzo and this. Of course, that may be explained by the fact that they did the 458 as well, or that they haven’t been going bonkers in such a long time.
It will presumably be called the F70 (the Enzo was actually called the F60 but in order to celebrate Ferrari’s 60 years anniversary, it received the founder’s name). You might remember my last article about the rumours of Ferrari developing turbocharging and it seems I guessed right, the new limited edition model might just receive a twin-turbo V8, or a natural aspirated V10, or anything in fact. We don’t know, it’s all a guess at best.
As Ferrari usually do, they take their last edition limited edition model (Enzo here), and make a mad, ready for the track version of it (FXX here) and then they make better what they could make better, throw in a bit of F1 technology and there you are – the new model arrives. So normally the new F70 should get FXX bits and F1 technology and the new turbo system perhaps.
But what Ferrari are trying to do now is keep the weight down, they don’t want to have a million horsepower engine with 2 tons of car. The new engine is expected to produce as much power as the Enzo but with a new body weighing only 1000kg. That means a power to weight ratio of more than 600hp/tonne. That’s more than a Bugatti Veyron. Another reason for concentration on reducing weight is CO2, as the Italian car company wants to reduce the CO2 output on its vehicles.
Now that is great news, so climb out of your Priuses eco-mentalists and get the new limited edition rampaging stallion. Well, probably not, as they will only make 399 and you can’t just go to the factory and say “I want one”, you have to be invited by Ferrari.
Source: Autoblog
So imagine you’re a millionaire. You’re looking for a high-end supercar, like the Veyron. You find that everything in that class is a bit slow though. So, of course, you commission someone to build something even better.
That’s exactly what’s happened here. Tuning company Underground Racing was commissioned by a customer named Jonah to build a twin-turbo Lamborghini Gallardo. The result? 1500hp at the wheels (Though it does require the use of VP C16 racing fuel). Compare that to the 1287hp the Shelby Supercars Ultimate Aero has at the crank, and you begin to realize just how fast this thing is. You may also bring up the Keating TKR as an argument, which has 1800hp at the crank. Now, there’s no official figure on the brake horsepower for this, but considering the drivetrain loss for AWD cars is about 25%, this should put out around 1875bhp, 75 more than the Keating. Admittedly, this is only an estimate, but there’s 75bhp of leeway before the Keating has the advantage, so I reckon this puts out more power.
The owner, Jonah, managed to clear the quarter mile in this in less than 10 seconds at a speed of over 160mph, and keep in mind that he isn’t a professional racing driver, hasn’t been to the drag strip in over a decade, and this was the first time he drove the car. Give a proper driver some time to practice in it, and I reckon this could clear the quarter mile in less than 9 seconds. Compare that to the Shelby Ultimate Aero Twin Turbo, which did the quarter mile in 9.90 seconds at 144mph with a proper driver in it, and you yet again see the sheer madness of this car.
Besides this insane engine, there have been some other changes. It’s got new wheels and new tires, the rear lights have been tinted, and a spoiler has been added. This may have come with the original car though, as it looks a bit like the Superleggera spoiler, so maybe the base car was a Superleggera. By the looks of the pictures, the car has also been lowered slightly. Details are a bit sparse, so I don’t know whether or not they modified the suspension, though I’d sure hope they did, as 1500whp with suspension intended for about 500bhp is insanity.
The engine is hooked up to a six-speed transmission of some sort. As far I can tell from the video below (Official video released by Underground Racing), the twin-turbo kit is now available for anyone who owns a Gallardo.
Source: WorldCarFans
Note: Article recreated after losing the original for an unknown reason.
British man-in-a-shed company Keating has got some serious ambitions: setting the record for the fastest production car in the world. They plan to do this using the Keating TKR.
It’s quite an amazing machine actually. It has a 7.0L engine developing an insane 1800hp. That’s about 800 more than the Bugatti Veyron, and about 600 more than the current record holder, the Shelby Supercars Ultimate Aero Twin Turbo. You’ve probably never heard of it though. Even if you have, you’ve probably never seen one in the flesh, as only 4 have been sold. 1 is in the UK, 1 is in the US, and two are in Australia.
Now, it’s already achieved what it needs to. In test runs, it hit 260.1mph, 3 more than the SSC Ultimate Aero and 7 more than the Bugatti Veyron. The problem is, that’s 3 more than the official record of the Ultimate Aero. The Ultimate Aero gets updated every year, and the latest model has a claimed top speed of 287mph, so while they can make the official record, so long as 260.1mph can be repeated again in the presence of officials, there will be people out there whining that it hasn’t beat 287mph. So to really prove itself, it needs to beat that. Keating realizes that, and has set themselves the goal of a whopping 300mph. I wish them good luck, and boy, would I love to have a ride in one of these myself. 1800hp at your disposal is my idea of heaven (Though it could also end in you actually going to heaven). Just one thing though, that rear end:
Zonda rip-off?
Source: WorldCarFans and an Autoblog article which, by coincidence, seems to have disappeared as well (Or maybe I just can’t find it)