US supercar-maker aims to topple Veyron

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The Veyron is one of the most awesome pieces of engineering I've heard of in a while, wrapped in a fat, slovenly, ugly example of modern day "coach work".

It's not even pleasing in the "it's designed to cheat the wind" way, it's just an ugly car.

The SSC is pretty unfortunately ugly too.

The top supercar is still the McLaren F1, because even if it's 10 mph slower, it gets the pulse going 10 times faster.
 
We are forgetting one very important thing that makes Bugatti, Ford (Saleen), Porsche, Ferrari and a few others so amazing for their cars...

I mean yes they have performance figures but this no-name company has no HISTORY...All of the aforementioned above have a history in the minds of people and books and etc. People know those names and what it means to them throughout the years...

Never take the history of a legendary automaker for granted...if you lose that, then anyone can make performance figures. You can't just make years of hard-work and long-term heart-felt memories and records and all that jazz...
 
Despite what everyone has said, I personally think this car is sexy! It really reminds me of a Diablo, but maybe a bit more aggressive looking. This purely opinion, but I believe looks-wise, the Ultimate Aero blows the doors off the Bugatti.
 
I would love to see how this car fares.

Styling: I'm not in love with it but it looks pretty sweet to me. Definitely not on the caliber of the established supercar makers; yet despite not having the same soul and passion, it manages to excite me.

Feasibility: It's kind of foolish to go straight for the top, but I suppose if they succeed it will put their name on the map - at least in Nevada.
 
Casio
Where did get these 273mph tyres again?
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Fair question.

Remember that the Veyron is limited to 250 something. Do we actually know what the potential top speed for the Veyron is?
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And they had a huge budget - so god only knows what the deal is here. The Veyron's theoretical isn't above 270, so the tired barely limit it.
 
I think the Veyrons theoretical limit is around 260mph, they couldn't get the tyres to pass saftey tests at that speed though. I think that it is possible to run a road car thoes road legal tyres "cheater slicks" which can cope with higher speeds, but they are nigh on useless in anything but bone dry conditions.
 
Delirious?
We are forgetting one very important thing that makes Bugatti, Ford (Saleen), Porsche, Ferrari and a few others so amazing for their cars...

I mean yes they have performance figures but this no-name company has no HISTORY...All of the aforementioned above have a history in the minds of people and books and etc. People know those names and what it means to them throughout the years...

Never take the history of a legendary automaker for granted...if you lose that, then anyone can make performance figures. You can't just make years of hard-work and long-term heart-felt memories and records and all that jazz...
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kennythebomb
Feasibility: It's kind of foolish to go straight for the top, but I suppose if they succeed it will put their name on the map - at least in Nevada.
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Koenigsegg, anyone? Their original intention was to go straight for the top, and look where they are now. It just might take a few years.

live4speed
I think the Veyrons theoretical limit is around 260mph, they couldn't get the tyres to pass saftey tests at that speed though. I think that it is possible to run a road car thoes road legal tyres "cheater slicks" which can cope with higher speeds, but they are nigh on useless in anything but bone dry conditions.
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Maybe we should get a whole bunch of wanna-be record holders and record holders and test them with racing tires rated to go that fast. See who really is king. We may eventually see this top-speed battle turn into a tire battle, who can build the fastest tires? Well, the tires on my miata are rated to 327mph. Can you beat that? Huh? Huh?
 
I have to admit I am kinda getting tired of this whole supercar/power war that has been going on lately. The market really is just overflowing with cars like this nowadays. If it keeps up at this rate Kia will have a supercar in a couple of months. :grumpy:

Not that I don't like supercars/power or am trying to act like a whining baby, but enough is enough. How much usable power can a street car have? To be completly honest with you I would much rather see companies spend their money producing sports cars like the Lancer Evolution, S2000, Impreza STi, etc. Its seems like their are less sports cars then there are supercars these days. Thats a shame too, because in the real world those cars personally appeal more to me then some super exotic hunk of carbon/alloys. :yuck:

(I do like how that car looks though!)
 
Delirious?
We are forgetting one very important thing that makes Bugatti, Ford (Saleen), Porsche, Ferrari and a few others so amazing for their cars...

I mean yes they have performance figures but this no-name company has no HISTORY...All of the aforementioned above have a history in the minds of people and books and etc. People know those names and what it means to them throughout the years...

Never take the history of a legendary automaker for granted...if you lose that, then anyone can make performance figures. You can't just make years of hard-work and long-term heart-felt memories and records and all that jazz...
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Koenigsegg has no history either, and look where it is. Saleen had absolutely no history in supercars until the S7 came around, and look at them now. Pagani, only a decade old, had no history except that it's creator worked for Lamborghini.

Every company has to start somewhere.

As for the negative comments about this car's performance, just know it beat the record-holding Enzo on R&T's slalom course, so it does account for something.
 
I'm not sure why people are not accepting that this car might break the recored , I appluad them for trying , if they make it they will make history , if they don't will tough .....
 
*McLaren*
As for the negative comments about this car's performance, just know it beat the record-holding Enzo on R&T's slalom course, so it does account for something.
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Care to mention how fast that was? I know a little car from Honda that can do it at 71.4 miles an hour, but that is hardly a supercar...
 
YSSMAN
Care to mention how fast that was? I know a little car from Honda that can do it at 71.4 miles an hour, but that is hardly a supercar...
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73.1Mph.

I'm surprised you're being so negative towards the car when its powerplant is essentially a GM V8 pushing out over 1,000Bhp.
 
Lets just say I'm passive on the whole thing.

Would it be cool if they beat the Veyron? Yes.
Do they have a good chance of beating the Veyron? Maybe.
Do I honestly care? Not really.

I think in my early post I was a bit more of a realist than anything, as there are more than enough hurdles for them to overcome on the fact that they are doing this on a public road alone. Sure, they may have 12 miles, but American highways are neither build for that kind of speed, nor would I ever suggest doing 200+ MPH on anything less than fairly new pavement under tight safety conditions.

...As I mentioned, they could be doing this at Boneville (what a crazy idea!), and I'm having a hard time understanding why not...

As an Indie company, they reserve the rights to be nuts. At the same time, I believe the public deserves the right to be wholly skeptical. It isn't necessarily being negative on the idea on the whole... But more of a realization that accomplishing such a task truly seems like an impossibility in some circumstances. That isn't to say that someone will probably, eventually, top the Veyron... But that there will have to be a lot of time and money spent doing it. Beyond that, making the car that is reasonable enough to be driven like a Jetta, not fall apart on the showroom floor, and actually be produced in numbers in excess of the one or two prototypes capable of those speeds.

So yes, maybe I'm setting my standards high, but then again it isn't my fault. The Veyron has managed to capture the automotive world's lighting in a bottle, and although many people are attempting to do the same, it may be a one-time thing for a while.

...What this kinda reminds me of is all of the people who tried to build their own flying machines after the successes of the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk...

Were they good ideas? Some of them, yes.
Did some of them work? Some of them, yes.
Did any fail? Most did.
How long until it was done "right"? A while.

Eventually someone will top the Veryon, and it has been a race to do it. But with everyone claiming to do it and never giving proof, its all kind of pointless, don't you think?
 
Nevermind. You're not getting what I'm saying.

YSSMAN clearly means there is no street car that will beat the Veyron. The fact I stated is that there is. Callaway did it over a decade ago and still reigns as the fastest street legal vehicle meaning something out ran the Veyron on the streets before the Veyron was even born.

It's just like the someone on another board saying the Veyron has the most advanced tires ever just because the Veyron hit 253Mph. How so if decade old tires went faster?
live4speed
According to Wikipedia the Sledgehammer didn't achieve 254.7mph in street legal trim either.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Corvette
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According to that, it needs a citation to show that. I've never seen anyone else say the car wasn't in street legal trim. Anyways, that's something like the McLaren run. It hit 391Kph in what some haters call "not-production form" even though you could technically set it up that way. I'm sure whatever way the Callway had run could be set up that way.
 
*McLaren*
It's just like the someone on another board saying the Veyron has the most advanced tires ever just because the Veyron hit 253Mph. How so if decade old tires went faster?
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Because the Veyron's tires were useable. I can stop just short of guaranteeing the Sledgehammer (and probably the Dauer as well, and if they ever actually tested it, the WX3) had cheater slicks. And I've never seen a published run with the Hennesey Venom, so that is null as well.
 
Toronado
Because the Veyron's tires were useable. I can stop just short of guaranteeing the Sledgehammer (and probably the Dauer as well, and if they ever actually tested it, the WX3) had cheater slicks. And I've never seen a published run with the Hennesey Venom, so that is null as well.
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True, Hennessey seems to be another boaster as well. Then again, why not when the guy is being sued by nearly every customer he has.

Maybe the Callaway did, maybe it didn't. Doesn't seem we'll ever know.

BTW Toronado, since you seem to be an expert on the Dauer 962LM, how fast was it, or how fast was it predicted to go?

I also didn't know WX3 (Vector, right?) was after a top speed record.
 
*McLaren*
BTW Toronado, since you seem to be an expert on the Dauer 962LM, how fast was it, or how fast was it predicted to go?
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Dauer took it to 251.4MPH, and I don't doubt that it could have gone that fast. The problem is that Dauer was the one that tested it.
*McLaren*
I also didn't know WX3 (Vector, right?) was after a top speed record.
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Vector claimed 1200BHP and 260MPH out of a 7.0 liter twin-turbocharged Chevy V8.
 
*McLaren*
Koenigsegg has no history either, and look where it is. Saleen had absolutely no history in supercars until the S7 came around, and look at them now. Pagani, only a decade old, had no history except that it's creator worked for Lamborghini.

Every company has to start somewhere.

As for the negative comments about this car's performance, just know it beat the record-holding Enzo on R&T's slalom course, so it does account for something.
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Thank you. A car does not need to be known or have history to be great. If its performance is good, it will speak for itself. And hey, it already beat your esteemed Enzo.
 
It may well beat the Veyron for outright speed, but that's not much use if no-one buys one.

All these supercar makers crawling out the woodwork to beat Bugatti...
 
That could be good, though. We may see loads of small-number supercar makers appear. That can only mean a biger variety of supercars on the road. Anyway, the supercar market of the last 20 years has been driven by small companies trying to make insane machines. Some will succeed, but most will fail. I see no end to this trend for quite awhile.

Come to think of it, this period is like the early ages of the automobile. Lots of companies trying to build something worth buying, with may failing. Supercar makers come and go, and someday we may see some more companies turn out like Koenigsegg.
 
Hey, I've just figured out what that little bulge on the bonnet reminds me of:

sagajk3.jpg


:indiff:
 
*McLaren*
Pagani, only a decade old, had no history except that it's creator worked for Lamborghini.
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I'm sure having a certain old racing driver by the name of Juan Manuel Fangio, who was both a friend of Pagani and something of a mentor to him, didn't do Pagani any harm at all...

Wiki
In 1988, Horacio Pagani, former manager of Lamborghini's composite department put up Pagani Composite Research. This new company worked extensively with Lamborghini on numerous projects, including the restyling of the Countach Anniversary, P140 and the Diablo. It was also during this time that Horacio started conceptualizing his own car, then called the "C8 Project," and eventually showing his drawings to Juan Manuel Fangio who he planned to name the car after (as the Fangio F1).

In 1991 Horacio Pagani set up Modena Design to meet the increasing demand for the services of design, engineering, model construction, moulds and prototypes. In 1992, he started construction of the prototype for the Fangio F1 and by 1993, they were testing the car at the Dallara wind tunnel, to positive results. It was around then that Fangio introduced Pagani to Mercedes-Benz and by 1994, they agreed to supply a V12 engine.

The final car, now called the Zonda C12 (the Fangio F1 name was dropped out of respect for Juan Manuel Fangio who had passed away) was presented at the 1999 Geneva Motor Show.
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....it is however a very valid point you make that everyone has to start somewhere. Its one of the things I most like about Pagani, they didn't start with any 'must beat car X at thing Y', rather just building the best car they could in a manner they wanted, and as such I personally believe they are one of the more successful of the recent breed of supercar manufacturers.

Regards

Scaff
 

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