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posted by janrinok on Monday September 02 2019, @09:28PM   Printer-friendly
from the whooosh dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

When it comes to the vital statistics of a modern hypercar, surely none have as little relevance as its top speed. You can make use of a sub three-second 0-60mph time in most parts of the world without causing a ruckus—just find the nearest toll booth on a highway. Pin the throttle flat and for a brief moment, until respect for one's fellow humans or fear of the speeding ticket takes over, and it's possible to experience all of the torque and power. But reaching the Vmax for most of these hand-built exotics remains an abstract idea, even on Germany's derestricted Autobahns.

Fast forward another nine years and Bugatti replaced the Veyron with the Chiron, another scarab-like hypercar but this time with even more powerful 8L W16 engine, packing almost 1,500hp (1,103kW). But when the new car arrived, Bugatti revealed that its top speed was actually electronically limited to a maximum of 261mph (420km/h). It could theoretically go faster than that but its specially designed Michelin tires would fail under the extreme forces. [...]

Bugatti and Wallace spent four days at Ehra-Lessien, and eventually found enough confidence in the car to keep it flat over "the jump", a resurfaced section of track that would unsettle the Chiron as it crossed it at warp speed. "After it landed and had a bit of a weave about I thought it was the best it's been, the cross wind was a little bit less and I just kept it pinned," he told Autocar.

The result was a scarcely believable 304.773mph (490.484km/h), giving Bugatti hypercar bragging rights that will probably be difficult to beat. (Particularly since Bugatti, like Ehra-Lessien, is owned by Volkswagen.) At the same time, Bugatti is a European company, and therefore works in metric, as do most of its global customers. You have to wonder if discussions have already begun about trying to find an extra 10km/h so it can break the 500km/h barrier as well…


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  • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday September 02 2019, @11:16PM (10 children)

    by RS3 (6367) on Monday September 02 2019, @11:16PM (#889019)

    I forget the details, but IIRC it, and other "hypercars" change shape, lower themselves, raise wings and flaps, etc. I can't imagine going that fast on land, but I'd want some pretty sophisticated dynamically controlled aerodynamics and flight surfaces. You catch a little air and you're in huge trouble. NASCAR cars barely go 200 MPH and have all kinds of flaps to attempt to control things when cars get sideways, but sometimes they go very airborne.

    I hope Dorian doesn't cause you too much trouble.

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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by PartTimeZombie on Monday September 02 2019, @11:27PM (8 children)

    by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Monday September 02 2019, @11:27PM (#889022)

    I have been a passenger in a car going ~320 kmp/h and that was plenty fast enough for me. On a racetrack of course.

    I suppose people go that fast on the autobahn, but they must have steel balls. I wouldn't do it.

    • (Score: 2) by Bot on Monday September 02 2019, @11:41PM (3 children)

      by Bot (3902) on Monday September 02 2019, @11:41PM (#889027) Journal

      > I suppose people go that fast on the autobahn

      They do. I was cruising at 200/210kph in the middle of a scarcely populated tract with a tuned 330d and I got passed by a gt40 so fast that I didn't even see what color the plate was. I don't get it, I'd rather play at the green light or in the mountain with a proper car (a dallara stradale, a 4c, a lotus seven replica, an atom...). But hey, to each one his toys.

      --
      Account abandoned.
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday September 03 2019, @12:05AM (2 children)

        by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Tuesday September 03 2019, @12:05AM (#889039)

        200 kmp/h in a nice BMW or whatever sounds great, especially on a good road like a autobahn. It's the extra 100 kmp/h that makes my sphincters clench.

        I agree with you about mountain driving. I had a lot of fun in my Alfa Romeo when I was young and stupid driving through mountain passes at not much more than the speed limit.

        (Honest officer)!

        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday September 03 2019, @01:55AM

          by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday September 03 2019, @01:55AM (#889066)

          We had a nice BMW that would do ~250kph, around 225 the aerodynamics started generating enough lift to lift up on its suspension, not enough to take off, but certainly enough to uncompress the springs, and the more air that got under, the more lift it generated.

          I think the flying Bugatti in Texas might have caught an unlucky bump or gust of wind or something - it ended up off the road skimming through the water for a long long way.

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        • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 03 2019, @04:31AM

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 03 2019, @04:31AM (#889111) Journal

          Mountain driving. I had to slow down some, when my new bride got carsick/airsick/seasick. That was a real bummer . . .

    • (Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday September 03 2019, @01:30AM

      by driverless (4770) on Tuesday September 03 2019, @01:30AM (#889062)

      Guy I know was the driver of a car doing 180kmh around a racetrack when the ECU glitched and he had to restart it.

      At 180kmh.

      Says something for automotive control systems design that the only noticeable effect was a slight knock in the ignition on restart.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 03 2019, @04:05AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 03 2019, @04:05AM (#889105)

      We should have autobahns in the US. Let's start a pressure group to promote them.

      We could call it The Autobahn Society.

      • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday September 03 2019, @07:51PM

        by Freeman (732) on Tuesday September 03 2019, @07:51PM (#889273) Journal

        You've described, essentially, 90% of New Mexico. Best time to drive through it is at night, as it's a giant desert. When my Dad would drive through, we'd be going quite fat, and never saw a single cop. Pro tip, if you see a sign that says no gas station for 100 miles. That's not an exaggeration. It might have gotten better, since I was a kid, but I wouldn't bet on it.

        --
        Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
    • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday September 03 2019, @01:18PM

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Tuesday September 03 2019, @01:18PM (#889181) Journal

      The autobahn is very flat and straight. You don't really notice the speed until you have to slow down suddenly. A friend's father in Cologne was an executive recruiter that had placed most of the top people in Citroen Germany; he was going to take a trip to see family in Berlin so they lent him a prototype that could do 300kph. It lowered itself the faster you went, to deal with the ground effect, presumably. So they invited me along and we briefly touched top speed just shy of the East German border, the one place where traffic let up enough. You didn't really notice the difference as a passenger between normal speeds and top speed.

      I do remember being impressed Citroen had managed it, since their cars are the sort that normally feel like they're going to rattle apart above 100kph.

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday September 03 2019, @01:59AM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday September 03 2019, @01:59AM (#889068)

    >but sometimes they go very airborne.

    That's the problem with ground-effects, when you lose your proximity to the ground, you have a dramatic transition from vacuum-stuck to the pavement, to being a big lifting body.

    You don't even need the Bernoulli effect of a long path over the top, short path on the bottom (which all cars have, anyway) - think about a sheet of plywood in the wind, tilt it up and you get tremendous lift just from the air impacting the bottom.

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