The King of Road Cars: The Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Super Sport (Part 3)
After driving the Veyron to top speed and learning about the 8.0 L W16 64-valve DOHC quad-turbocharged engine, you get out to admire the outside of the car. The rounded shape makes you think it was called a Bugatti because it looks like a “Bug.” However,
the shape was designed to reduce drag and make it cut through the air like a hot knife through butter. The car is just over 14.5 feet long, 6.5 feet wide, and less than 4 feet tall.
The aerodynamic shape and powerful engine allows it to go from 0 to 100 km/h in 2.5 seconds, making it the fastest car by acceleration as well. Two seconds later, at 4.5 seconds, the car is at 160 km/h and then to 240 km/h less than five seconds later, at
9.8 seconds after starting. Five seconds later, the car reaches 300 km/h and 400 km/h in a total of 50 seconds. The final 100 km/h are the hardest to cover because by this time, the air resistance is pushing the car back. At 400 km/h, the air is strong enough
to lift the car off of the ground and send it flying if the engineers didn’t design it to do so. Most jumbo jets take off at speeds of 200 km/h, so you can see how hard it is to get to 400 km/h.
The Veyron SS can cover a quarter-mile (400 m) in 10.2 seconds at a speed of 230 km/h. The only car faster is the SSC Ultimate Aero TT, which covers the quarter-mile in 9.9 seconds at a speed of 232 km/h. The incredible power of the Veyron gives it low fuel
economy, roughly 9.6 miles per gallon (mpg) city driving, and 16 mpg on the highway. However, this is more than many other slower and cheaper cars, such as the Lamborghini Murcielago, Ferrari 612 Scaglietti, Bentley Arnage, Maserati Spyder, and Aston Martin
DB9, which get 7.2, 7.7, 8.2, 9.0, and 8.9 mpg city driving, respectively. However, at top speed, the Veyron guzzles 1.2 gallons of petrol per minute!
At 431 km/h, the Veyron’s tires will last only 15 minutes before they either explode or start to melt. But don’t worry, when at top speed, the fuel will run out in 12 minutes. In that much time, you will have covered 50 miles!
Aside from going fast, it is more important to be able to stop the car. The Veyron uses carbon fibre disk brakes and the aluminium calipers have 8 titanium pistons per tire up front and 6 per tire in the back. Anti-lock Brakes (ABS) are installed to keep
the car steady, and in the case of brake failure, the handbrake is also equipped with ABS. On road tires, the maximum deceleration claimed by Bugatti is 1.3 g’s. When going over 200 km/h, the rear spoiler acts as an air brake, like those on fighter jets. When
the brake is pressed, the spoiler will flip up to a 55 degree angle to provide an additional .68 g’s of braking power. A typical hatchback’s normal brakes have less than .68 g’s of braking power! The Veyron is claimed to brake from 400 km/h to 0 in less than
10 seconds, although in that much time, you will have covered more than half a kilometre!
The making of this incredible supercar is all thanks to the German Volkswagen Group and the Veyron’s chief designer, Hartmut Warkuss. No less important is exterior designer Jozef Kaban and Bugatti Engineering chief, Wolfgang Schreiber.
Other limited editions of the Veyron have also been launched.
The “Pur Sang,” meaning “thoroughbred,” is a limited production of just five cars. They are standard cars and the only difference is road wheels made of high-gloss aluminium and have a diamond cut finish. They are also not painted and have a clear coat to
show the car’s carbon fibre body.
The remaining special versions and pricing of the Veyron will be discussed in the next article.
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