| 2006/05/18 I drove the fastest road car in the world | |
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2006-05-18 23:45
by Merlin
in Cars, Ncars
This morning, I got to drive a
Bugatti Veyron
, which is and probably will remain the fastest road car in the world (as well as the most expensive, with a price of 1.3 million dollars + tax). You should follow the link to wikipedia for the gory details, but interesting pieces are acceleration from 0 to 60mph in 2.5sec, 1006HP (and the 2 8 cylinder engines with 4 turbos actually develop 3000HP, but 1000 are lost in the exhaust, and another 1000 are lost in cooling).
Before you ask me how I pulled off a test drive, it's thanks to a coworker who had bought a car at the dealership, got an invite himself, and told me about it. When I called, with his referral, I was able to get the last test drive left on the schedule (the Veyrons were only there for 3 days). What's kind of interesting is that 2 people had already bought one, haven't received yet, and went for a test drive as their first time driving the car ever. Anyway, in my case, well, it was just a cool thing to try. The test drive itself was unfortunately a bit short, and while I did get to drive the car for maybe 5-10mn, we didn't really get much clear road, and never got to see its handling or how it would handle when pushed in a corner. The other bummer is that the driver who would take you out was actually a Lemans driver and he told me how he would make a left on Bear Creek Road, but he couldn't do that anymore because the cops knew he was giving test rides. Yet, we still got to do a few launches on the freeway, and boy does the car have power. Surprisingly it was very stable, easy to drive, and wasn't that loud, although you could hear the turbos spinning. While, we never got to push the car much, it was really nice to drive. Too bad I didn't have a newborn to sell :) so that I could reserve one for late 2007 (!) Oh, the other interesting Tidbits is that I drove the actual car that Jeremy Clarkson drove on Top Gear when he tested it (race against the Cessna 182), and that VW loses about 4 million dollars on each of the 300 cars they'll make over the next 6 years.
Back at Los Gatos Silicon Valley Auto Group, I used the opportunity to test drive an F430 spyder, which is almost 5 times cheaper with its punny 490HP :) The sound was pretty glorious, I have to give it that, and it was fun to drive too :) I kind of knew I liked that car, and I confirmed that I do :) They also have all kinds of other exotic cars that you wouldn't really get to see in any other places in the world, including a Saleen S7. You can look at the pictures I took to see all those cars and other Veyron pictures I took . I just can't believe that I was stupid enough not to get a picture of me inside the Veyron. Doh!
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