Top Gear: Series 15

[JointStrikeFighter]

Turns out people who aren't drunken rednecks like their cars to look nice?

[Mr. Coffee]

Turns out people who aren't drunken rednecks like their cars to look nice?

Turns out drunken rednecks also don't feel the need to compensate by buying something pretty instead of something designed for the job. But hey, nice +1 post ya got there.

[JointStrikeFighter]

Good thing the veyron is designed for both the jobs of going fast AND being a luxury car

[aerius]

The sad part is the Veyron understeers like a pig, hell, the manufacturer pretty much admits to it.

Pebble Beach 2008 sees the introduction of the targa-topped Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport. According to Wolfgang Schreiber, Bugatti's head of engineering, this is the world's stiffest roadster. Its chassis is softer than its coupé sister's, Schreiber claiming that the revisions reduce understeer.

Even better, it power understeers, hit the gas coming out of a corner and it pulls wide. The best I can say is that it's not a Nissan GT-R which goes from heavy understeer to snap oversteer with no predictability or warning. These are not drivers' cars.

If I'm going to be spending stupid money I'll buy a Ferrari, their cars handle properly when you push them hard and can be balanced through corners with the pedals.

[Shinova]

Though even then a ZR1 corvette outmaneuvers a Ferrari. Although from what I hear the Corvettes don't feel as good and easy to maneuver compared to Ferraris.

[Mr. Coffee]

Good thing the veyron is designed for both the jobs of going fast AND being a luxury car

And it's not quite as fast on a track as a lot of cars that cost a lot less money, and isn't quite as luxurious as a lot of cars that cost less. But hey, keep on masturbating and useless +1 posts, you lame Stark wannabe.

[aerius]

Good thing the veyron is designed for both the jobs of going fast AND being a luxury car

It's something like 10dB louder inside than a Dodge Viper ACR. The transmission makes shitty clunking noises. The 20 odd fans in the car wheeze air like an emphysema patient. And the engine sounds like ass. It completely fails at being a luxury car.

[montypython]

A modern day Mclaren F1 with dual clutch transmissions and direct injection engine would be as exemplary an automotive experience as can be, although the Porsche 918 sounds very intriguing.

[Twigler]

[about the Veyron]

It's something like 10dB louder inside than a Dodge Viper ACR. The transmission makes shitty clunking noises. The 20 odd fans in the car wheeze air like an emphysema patient. And the engine sounds like ass. It completely fails at being a luxury car.

You've driven one? Serious question since this thread seems to be filled with people who have an excellent first hand knowledge of super cars and how to judge their performance.

Okay, that last statement was dripping with sarcasm, but you actually sound like you've been in one, so I'm genuinely curious if you did.

[aerius]

I haven't been in a Veyron yet. I was a bit off in the noise levels, I checked my Car & Driver magazines again and the Veyron is about 6-7dB louder than the Viper ACR which is a stripped down track car. But I have driven various other high performance cars on a track and I've been driving autocross events and going to open track days for some time now.

[Siege]

Louder at what speed?

[JointStrikeFighter]

I wasn't aware aerius was a professional automotive journalist with years of experience.

[darthdavid]

Posted by Richard Porter at 5:25 pm on Friday July 30, 2010

Hello again, and welcome to the last of these wittering-on-about-what’s-in-the-show blogs for this run because, as you can probably guess, Sunday’s TopGear is the final show in this 15th series.

At the risk of sounding immodest, last week’s show was a bit of a humdinger and there’s no point pretending it was going to be easy to follow. But follow it we must and – with the modesty-o-meter now pinging off the minus end of the scale – I think we’ve done a rather good job.

First off, we’ve got Jeremy’s track test of the saucy new Ferrari 458 which begins with a small ticker tape parade and draws to a close with some shouting, having taken in several other Ferraris along the way including a 430 owned by a chap whose name you might recognise.

After that Jeremy, Richard and James are together for an interesting challenge in which they attempt to prove to the world that old British sports cars are great and never deserved to be killed off by the hot hatchback.

They do this by spending £5000 a piece on a lovely old roadster of some sort and then undertaking a road trip across Britain, taking in some of its finest sites along the way.

There are some fantastically silly moments in this and some properly funny lines from the presenters – Hammond’s claiming that he’s ‘warm’ being my personal favourite – but this is also an item shot through with some fascinating facts and a gut tugging amount of poignancy.

As if that wasn’t enough, we’ve got another Hollywood star in the Reasonably Priced Car as Jurassic Park legend Jeff Goldblum takes his turn in the Kia Capostrophedee.

And that, my friends, will be that until TopGear returns at a point in the future that I’m not allowed to tell you about yet. Thanks for all your comments, good and bad, during the last few weeks.

Come back to topgear.com on Sunday after the show to see a video exclusive in which the presenters reflect on the series past before Jeremy and James get sidetracked discussing their surprising obsession with another BBC television programme.

EDIT: And remember, because of the athletics tonight’s show is on at 9.30pm on BBC2. That’s 9.30pm. As you were.

[Admiral Valdemar]

The Ferrari 458, now that is a beauty, even if the steering controls are utterly retarded as is the dash.

Yay, Blackpool again! The roadworks comment... yes, never had to deal with those things when driving home to Lancashire on the M6 like yesterday. Nothing on there at all, no siree.

I'm glad The Stig didn't meet his end by being kerploded, decapitated or drowned in horrible safer, cheaper and more efficient foreign rubbish.

*sigh* The final moments of reflection make me wonder what we'd be doing now were we not so fucked up as an economy now.

[MKSheppard]

I wasn't aware aerius was a professional automotive journalist with years of experience.

No, but he reads magazines where auto journalists write about this stuff.

Link

To Wit:

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The somewhat disappointing news is that despite accurate, nicely weighted steering and 1.00 g of skidpad grip, the car isn’t particularly nimble in the hills, where it is taxed by its 4486-pound heft. It feels more like a Benz SL63 AMG than, say, a BMW M3.

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The Veyron’s weird shifter, which we named Klaatu, is as alien as the rest of the car. Push down for park. Push once to the right for drive. Twice to the right for sport mode. Left for neutral. Left and down for reverse. No matter where you shove it, it instantly returns to its original position, à la BMW turn signals. This is annoying, but resist the urge to abuse any gears. A new transmission costs $123,200. Speaking of abuse, within the 366-page hardcover owner’s manual, there are 190 boxed messages headlined “WARNING!”

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For starters, even at the most forgiving of its three ride heights (4.9 inches), it hates curbs, speed bumps, automatic carwashes, and dead animals, which it scoops up as if performing community service. It has the turning radius (39.3 feet) of a Navy minesweeper. There is no 12-volt outlet, so you’ll want to own a battery-powered radar detector. And the carbon-fiber sport seats are adjusted manually. To raise or lower their height, in fact, they must be removed. By the dealer.

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At a 70-mph cruise, the Veyron is 8 dB noisier than a Porsche 911 GT2. At full throttle, it is 6 dB noisier than a track-ready Dodge Viper SRT10 ACR.

Please note that 70 MPH cruising is....actually where most people will be driving it at; barring a 25 mile test track that a billionaire built in his backyard. So $1.7 million, you get a car that while fast; utterly fails at the "luxury" segment that JSF keeps wharking about.

Just buy a Corvette ZR-1. In fact, like Coffee said; buy a ZR-1, get a garage's worth of other supercars, then build a garage to hold them and buy insurance for the price of a Veyron.

[Tolya]

Veyron is a sheikh-toy, not a true sportscar. Buying one is buying a Bugatti badge with assorted impressive engineering strapped to it. I love how the car looks and the technical specs are quite impressive, but considering that there are cars that cost 1/10 of the price and perform just as good (or even better) Veyron would have to cook, clean and give blowjobs and perform boob jobs for me to even remotely consider purchasing one.

I won't say that I dislike Veyron. But it's the automotive equivalent of HMS Titanic, only that not much people seem to notice that it ran an iceberg - a vehicle marketed as a technological marvel of the century is actually slower than cars not even considered to be a competition. Oh sure, it has cockpit switches made from titanium that cost 70 thousand in cash a piece, but it's the same as being in a bathroom with a golden flush and toilet paper made from ivory. There is just no point in it other than showing off to people who can't afford it. It's probably the little commie in me speaking, but that's how I feel it is.

True petrolheads stick to tried and true cars like Ferrari's, Porsche's, Corvettes. I would pick a 911 Turbo over a Veyron any time. Or, if we are in the same price range, an F1 McLaren.

[montypython]

Veyron is a sheikh-toy, not a true sportscar. Buying one is buying a Bugatti badge with assorted impressive engineering strapped to it. I love how the car looks and the technical specs are quite impressive, but considering that there are cars that cost 1/10 of the price and perform just as good (or even better) Veyron would have to cook, clean and give blowjobs and perform boob jobs for me to even remotely consider purchasing one.

I won't say that I dislike Veyron. But it's the automotive equivalent of HMS Titanic, only that not much people seem to notice that it ran an iceberg - a vehicle marketed as a technological marvel of the century is actually slower than cars not even considered to be a competition. Oh sure, it has cockpit switches made from titanium that cost 70 thousand in cash a piece, but it's the same as being in a bathroom with a golden flush and toilet paper made from ivory. There is just no point in it other than showing off to people who can't afford it. It's probably the little commie in me speaking, but that's how I feel it is.

True petrolheads stick to tried and true cars like Ferrari's, Porsche's, Corvettes. I would pick a 911 Turbo over a Veyron any time. Or, if we are in the same price range, an F1 McLaren.

It would not surprise me if Mclaren managed to build a car that was a simpler, faster and better overall vehicle than the Veyron if given the same amount of resources.

[Tolya]

It would not surprise me if Mclaren managed to build a car that was a simpler, faster and better overall vehicle than the Veyron if given the same amount of resources.

Oh, Im pretty sure of that. They are, after all, in business of making F1 cars. You can't really go more hardcore than that.

It's the fucking accountants in the car companies who are to blame. If you want to create a sexy, slick and fast sportscar you cannot treat it like a box of breakfast cereal. McLaren F1 was created because it's creators had a vision and they didn't give a rat's ass about marketing, sales, advertising and such. They made a car they thought would be a reflection of the company's success in F1.

Veyron on the other hand is an expensive sheikh toy. No soul.

[Starglider]

Veyron on the other hand is an expensive sheikh toy. No soul.

The design philosophy of the Veyron seemed to be 'we will pack as much clever technology as we can into this car, and we will overbuild it to be reliable, regardless of the cost or diminishing returns'. Personally I love that, in that it's an engineering work of art. There are scores of pretty looking Italian sports cars, ultra-light track-day cars, mid-range sports cars etc etc. All much better value for money and many of them may well be better to drive. However the Veyron goes for a kind of highly engineered brute force which is relatively unique. The last car I can think of that took the same attitude was the Vector W8 in the late 80s (and Vector never had the funding to make it work reliably - though the W8 is still my favorite historical sports car).

[aerius]

The design philosophy of the Veyron seemed to be 'we will pack as much clever technology as we can into this car, and we will overbuild it to be reliable, regardless of the cost or diminishing returns'. Personally I love that, in that it's an engineering work of art.

That's actually ass-backwards and a very poor engineering practice. Cramming as much shit into it as possible, complicating the car to hell, then having to over-spec everything to a ridiculous degree to make it work to an acceptable standard is bad engineering by any standard.

Let's take the engine, they used a W-16 to get the 1000hp rating. That means more swept area for the pistons, greater frictional losses, higher heat losses and thus lower efficiency, more parts to fail, a more convoluted manifold & valvetrain design which makes it harder to produce, less reliable, and less efficient, not to mention 4 turbos with all the plumbing and heat management problems they cause. And since the engine is less efficient it creates more heat which requires a larger cooling system which adds more weight, takes up more space, and fucks up the chassis & body design. Just to make everything work requires exotic & expensive materials & production methods for damn near everything.

Or they could've just taken a small block V-8, bored it out to 6.5 to 7L, slapped a couple turbos on it and called it done. It would make the same amount of power, run more efficiently, weigh a hell of a lot less, and make the cooling system & chassis & body design a hell of a lot easier. And it'll work a lot more reliably for a hell of a lot less cost since since it has far fewer parts and hot-rodded V-8 engines are a mature proven technology where all the bugs have been worked out over the past 60 years.

[Bounty]

Let's take the engine, they used a W-16 to get the 1000hp rating. That means more swept area for the pistons, greater frictional losses, higher heat losses and thus lower efficiency, more parts to fail, a more convoluted manifold & valvetrain design which makes it harder to produce, less reliable, and less efficient, not to mention 4 turbos with all the plumbing and heat management problems they cause. And since the engine is less efficient it creates more heat which requires a larger cooling system which adds more weight, takes up more space, and fucks up the chassis & body design. Just to make everything work requires exotic & expensive materials & production methods for damn near everything.

Source?

The W-design isn't Veyron-specific, VW have been using W12 engines for years in production cars with none of the issues you mentioned - unless there's a spate of Audi A8 failures and fires I'm unaware of.

[Tolya]

The W-design isn't Veyron-specific, VW have been using W12 engines for years in production cars with none of the issues you mentioned - unless there's a spate of Audi A8 failures and fires I'm unaware of.

That wasn't his point. He didn't argue reliability, only efficency. And I agree: Saleen S7 Twin Turbo engine is only a twin turbocharged 7-litre V8 which produces 750 bhp. If VW needs twice more displacement, twice more cylinders and twice more turbos to generate only 250 bhp more, I think W16 pales in comparison.

Or the 4,7 litre V8 of the Koenigsegg CCX, which produces 860 bhp? Im sorry Volkswagen, but I am not really that impressed

[Bounty]

That wasn't his point. He didn't argue reliability

"More parts to fail, less reliability". He must certainly argued it.

ETA: What I'm trying to get at is that I'm not at all convinced the W-configuration is inherently inferior to a V-engine, as Aerius claims. It has more parts, yes, but it's also a proven technology that the VW-group seems content to continue supporting for its luxury vehicles. I'm not an automotive engineer, so I can't tell you what the advantage of the design is - I'd wager it has to do with smoothness and compactness for a given number of cylinders - but to discard it based on vague notions of "efficiency" and "reliability" is as stupid as saying there's no point to V6-powered sedan when a turbocharged four gets similar horsepower figures.

[JointStrikeFighter]

MOD DELETE PLEASE

[Tolya]

ETA: What I'm trying to get at is that I'm not at all convinced the W-configuration is inherently inferior to a V-engine, as Aerius claims. It has more parts, yes, but it's also a proven technology that the VW-group seems content to continue supporting for its luxury vehicles. I'm not an automotive engineer, so I can't tell you what the advantage of the design is - I'd wager it has to do with smoothness and compactness for a given number of cylinders - but to discard it based on vague notions of "efficiency" and "reliability" is as stupid as saying there's no point to V6-powered sedan when a turbocharged four gets similar horsepower figures.

My guess is that they keep that huge hog around mainly for marketing reasons. I can't imagine a company CEO driving around an inline four car. Or a millionaire. Or a rock star. People like that enjoy having a big number on the back of their car so they can brag about it. And a W engine is certainly more 'bling' than a V unit.