VW loses millions just making each one -- the selling price doesn't begin to cover the £5 million cost of production.
Of its ten radiators, only 3 (heh... "only") are for the engine coolant; the others include:
1 heat exchanger for the air to liquid intercoolers;
2 for the air conditioning system;
1 transmission oil radiator;
1 differential oil radiator;
1 engine oil radiator;
1 hydraulic oil radiator for the spoiler.
It was featured in a recent issue of EVO magazine, which took one on a comparison drive with a Ferrari Enzo, a Pagani Zonda, and a Porsche Carrera GT (the really fast one with the 7-lb clutch). All of those are pretty fantastic machines, with the Enzo holding the record on Top Gear's test course last time I noticed. When the writers got to the twisty back roads, the Bugatti completely outran the other three supercars. It's
rapid -- it handles turns as easily as it handles straightline speed.
Give a McLaren F1 (the three-seat road car, not the racer) a head start to 120 mph, and the Veyron will beat it to 200.
It's truly a "Concorde moment", as the lads on Top Gear have said. To go so fast, and to do it so
effortlessly, is simply amazing. I won't lie -- I would own one if I could.
Here's the full 38-minute video, filmed some time prior to James May's top speed run, where they raced the Veyron against James's Cessna from northern Italy to London. Jeremy Clarkson just can't stop raving about it, either.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... ar+bugatti
Not to knock VW's achievement, but... for example, the bore & stroke are the same as the current 2-liter Honda motors. Divide that 8-liter V16 into four, and you get four 2-liter 4-cylinder engines. Typically, Honda owners who turbocharge their motors are getting 250 horsepower to the wheels (measured after drivetrain losses), and can exceed 300 with good ECU tuning and higher boost. Reverse-multiply those results, and it seems plausible to push another two hundred horsepower out of a Veyron.
