How can you use a Veyron to go shopping. There is NO space for luggage at all. Not in the nose and not in the rear.
Use the passenger seat. I would dare to use the Veyron for getting some things on a cold, wet winter morning. I wouldn't do that with a 1400 hp Hennessey Viper though. Would you?
I would say the MB SLR McLaren is the Veyrons clsoest rival in terms of SuperGT. That car does all the above plus carries luggage. Maybe not the overall power aspect. But I expect the Bug to be very close to the SLR around a track.
Apart from the McLaren F1, the SLR sure is the most practical supercar.
My issue is with all the press saying how its great because its a "Masterpiece of engineering"
Hardly. As you say every single aspect of this car can be done better. The power, the weight, the dimensions, the interior equipment, the luggage space etc etc.
Yes, but doing it all at the same time is the key. My Bimmer is much lighter than the Veyron. Is it the better car for that reason?
If anything, its lazy car design. Theres not one thing in there thats new and amazing.
It seems you know the car down to the last screw then, do you?
125 BHP per litre is pretty insignificant for a $1m car.
Show me where it says that a $1M car needs to have 125+ BHP per litre. I'm sorry, but this statement actually is insignificant.
Wheres the super rare materials?
Again, do you know what this car is made of in every single detail? And please also show me where it says that only rare materials qualify a car to be outstanding.
Wheres the innovation? Thats why the car needs 10 radiators, because they (Engineers) never sorted the cooling sufficiently. The engines not even covered and it overheats (3 killed water pumps on the official press launch which necessitates the car splitting in half)
The problem they had is that they had to cover the asked figures
and use the given design at the same time. If they'd only have to cover the figures, they'd have a much easier job. But they had to squeeze all of that into the given shape, making cooling, airflow and aerodynamics very hard to handle. And I suppose I don't need to tell you that getting a car up to stable 407 kph is no fun.
Clarkson talked about the Ricardo (British) Gearbox needing to be stronger than an F1 cars. But thats not the point. An F1 gearbox is the size of 2 bottles of wine. If they wanted to make one to handle 3000BHP they could but expect it to weigh loads.
They sure could. But this one has to withstand the enormous forces of the engine and the grip of all four tires, and at the same time last for the rest of the cars life, ideally at least. This is another case of "you can do more than they did for the Veyron".
If the Veyron weighed in at 1000KGs, was the size of a Ford Focus, was good looking (subjective that) I would say that was clever, but they just kept adding things to cure problems and thats why its ended up a) so expensive and b) so heavy.
I stated above which problems they faced. So, if the Veyron is not amazing, name the vehicle that outclasses it in general.
Its not new engineering its just existing engineering beefed up for a purpose. Great, but thats not as amazing as they would have you believe. Lots of people talk of Concorde when they talk of the Veyron. Consider this. Before Concorde, no commercial plane looked like that or went that speed. And it stayed like that for 25? years. Before Veyron people had road cars that took more luggage, went faster, were lighter etc etc. So whats unique? What makes this a pinnacle of Automotive engineering?
As stated before, the combination of all this. Which other car has this power and is this usable at the same time?
The Concorde carried less passengers and less luggage, using more fuel compared to a 747 by the way. So, if the Concorde was worse in almost every category, why did they make it?
Look, the Veyron gives you a whole package, combining
enough power with durability and driveability. Trying to get the materials rare, every figure as high a possible and reinventing the automobile completely can be done, but is not the point. The Veyron does what it is supposed to do, and else just works. That's very rare for a supercar, and is a major part of its appeal.