That car looks remarkably non-aerodynamic for that insane speed.
Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier
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Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s 490.48 km/h (304.77 mph).
Why is the "300mph barrier" even a thing when we're talking about a French-turned-Italian-turned-German automaker doing test runs in Germany? They only barrier they need to care about is the metric one at 500km/h.
Because it sounds impressive and it gives them a record title they can use to market the car. Last thing they did was their 0-400-0 records time, something nobody before them even thought about, hyped up in their marketing video [0].
Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier
#13It's futile to actually have road-legal cars that go this fast because you can't do very much useful with the speed.
This is much too fast for the human operator (driver) to safely react to things outside the cockpit, which is why for example Britain owns trains capable of 140mph in service but deliberately limits them to 125mph. Tests suggested drivers couldn't be relied on to reliably observe and react to a lineside signal (showing e.g. double amber, "Prepare to find the next signal at: Prepare to find the next signal at: Danger") passed at 140mph. The "obvious" upgrade is to put the signals inside the cab with the driver, and that's how high speed trains work. But a car doesn't have in-cab signals either, and it has a LOT more external signals to respond to, including several signs we see in that video.
Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier
#14I'm not sure what record they have here. There have already been multiple road-legal 300 mph cars as well as a stock road-legal 300 mph car for sale (Koenigsegg Jesko). The article says that this is the first from a series manufacturer. Why does Koenigsegg not count, or was this the first?
Those are theoretical limits from simulations. This is the first to actually record a real 300mph run
That's not true for the modified Ford, though I concede it is for the Koenigsegg.
See here, coincidentally on the same source website: https://www.topgear.com/car-news/usa/ford-gt-just-did-300mph
This obviously isn't a series manufacturer, so the quote in the article may still be accurate but the title seems incomplete though it (correctly) doesn't claim Bugatti is the first.
Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier
#15That car looks remarkably non-aerodynamic for that insane speed.
I guess a lot of that comes from the need to feed its 10 radiators.
Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier
#16I'm not sure what record they have here. There have already been multiple road-legal 300 mph cars as well as a stock road-legal 300 mph car for sale (Koenigsegg Jesko). The article says that this is the first from a series manufacturer. Why does Koenigsegg not count, or was this the first?
They don't have a record yet, but the record they are aiming for is for the fastest "production" car. The car they used was modified from stock so it doesn't count for the record yet. But this will almost certainly lead to a small batch of cars with the same configuration from the factory, which they will use to (re)claim the fastest production car crown.
Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier
#17Non-production car, not replicated in both directions. Impressive, but not any sort of record. Looking forward to them doing it in the forthcoming production car.
Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier
#18I'm not sure what record they have here. There have already been multiple road-legal 300 mph cars as well as a stock road-legal 300 mph car for sale (Koenigsegg Jesko). The article says that this is the first from a series manufacturer. Why does Koenigsegg not count, or was this the first?
Do you have a source or link to any verified speed runs by those cars? AFAIK those are theoretical numbers, and Koenigsegg has never had a verified run at 300mph+)
Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier
#19I'm not sure what record they have here. There have already been multiple road-legal 300 mph cars as well as a stock road-legal 300 mph car for sale (Koenigsegg Jesko). The article says that this is the first from a series manufacturer. Why does Koenigsegg not count, or was this the first?
> Andy and the prototype Chiron supersede previous really, really fast runs from SSC (256.18mph two-way average, 2007), Hennessey (270.49mph two-way average, 2013) and Koenigsegg (284.55 vmax, 277.87 two-way average, 2017)
The modified Ford GT already reached 300 mph: https://www.topgear.com/car-news/usa/ford-gt-just-did-300mph
Re: Bugatti has broken the 300mph barrier
#20That car looks remarkably non-aerodynamic for that insane speed.
> That car looks remarkably non-aerodynamic for that insane speed.
It needs to balance low drag, down force, cooling, and probably a bunch of other factors. And it needs to look cool.