I know it’s just past Thanksgiving, but I hope you still have some mental space to be thankful, because there’s something that just happened about which you should be very thankful. That something is that my Autopian co-founder David Tracy and I just had a long, largely pointless argument about the worth of the Bugatti Veyron, and you did not have to be a part of it. It went on and on, and somehow you were spared the irritating tedium of two insufferable dorks carping at each other. So be thankful. But, not too thankful, because unfortunately for you and every other literate human (or suitably enhanced non-human animal) with the misfortune to be reading this, I am now going to relay the contents of this debate, right here, right now. You’re going to have to think about the at least $2 million dollar Veyron, and you’re going to have to decide if it’s an engineering marvel worth universal admiration or a useless stunt that, really, just doesn’t matter.
Also, I guess I should mention that since I’m the one writing this post, this’ll be sorta biased, unless David comes in afterwards and adds a lot of editor’s notes. But I’ll convey his argument to the best of my – if not ability, then willingness – and include what he said in Slack, so you can see how woefully misguided he is for yourself.
Here’s my fundamental point: For all the attention and adoration and some other word that starts with “a” that the Veyron has gotten, it’s proven to be a car that just doesn’t really… matter. Let’s be honest, here: who really gives a shit about Veyrons? [Editor’s Note: I do. I consider it the greatest automotive engineering marvel of my lifetime. What it offered in 2005 was mind-numbingly advanced. Nothing came close. -DT]. Do you see people driving them or racing them or, hell, even really enjoying them in any significant way? Or are almost all of them just helping to anchor air-conditioned garages safely to the Earth?
Sure, there’s the Tax The Rich guy who whipped his around for YouTube views, and that looked fun, though I bet you could have had about as much fun doing that in a 280Z or a Lada or a Supra or a Civic, and then there was that guy who crashed his Veyron into a lake because he let a pelican drive, or something. So, that’s what, 2 out of 450 total cars. I mean, I’m sure there’s a few more out there people are actually using in engaging ways, but if they are, they’re keeping it very, very quiet.
Yes, the Bugatti Veyron was an absolute technological tour-de-force, or, as David worships, “a moonshot:”
And yes, David, I still rip on them. Because of course it was an engineering marvel and the first “production” car to hit 1,000 hp and be able to hit over 250 mph: when you have a company with the resources of the Volkswagen Group effectively firehosing money and engineering talent at a project, yeah, of course it’ll be “insanely tech-forward.”
And it was tech forward, of course, but let’s take a moment and think about this: did any of the hyper-advanced tech that went into the Veyron actually end up influencing automotive technology as a whole? Was it technologically influential? Are W16 engines a big thing now, with quad turbochargers and eight-titanium-piston brake calipers found on cars all across the automotive spectrum? How about ten separate radiators? No. Fuck no. Because all that stuff is absurdly expensive and complex, as you would expect of a no-limits engineering tech-wank like the Veyron.
Hell, this is a car that has to have $42,000 tires, and those tires, that are specially adhered to the wheels with glue, and that glue is only guaranteed to be good for 18 months at a time, so you have to change tires every year and a half whether you drive the car or not, which, again, most owners do not. And every three tire changes means you need new wheels. How is this good engineering?
Oh, and if you were somehow able to really appreciate all of that magical, fantastical engineering that enables the Veyron to be able to achieve its stellar, awe-inspiring top speed of 267.856 mph, you could only do so for 15 minutes, because that’s how long the tires last at that speed. Oh, but you don’t have to worry about exceeding that limit, because the Veyron will empty its gas tank in 12 minutes at that speed, anyway.
So, for all of this incredible engineering that makes David’s genitals engorge and sets his soul afire and makes him say things like this:
… after all of this, the sum total time that this machine can live up to its true potential is 12 minutes. Then you’re pushing it back down the dry lake bed or wherever the hell you actually tried doing this (you’d need at least 50 miles of open, straight road, remember), and doing the math in your head for how much you need to spend on new tires or when your next $21,000 oil change is.
This is an idiotic machine.
And I even mean this in the greater context of supercars, a whole category I can’t say I’m especially fond of. Compare the Veyron to an earlier supercar, the Porsche 959. The 959, built from 1986 to 1993, pioneered a huge array of technological developments that are still extremely relevant today, like computer-controlled all-wheel drive and suspension, sequential turbocharging, and essentially setting the template for modern performance cars to this very day. The Veyron didn’t do anything like that. It was a technological triumph, sure, but a fragile, isolated one, a Galapagos tortoise of achievement, a dead end that influenced nothing in the greater automotive world.
[Ed Note: To understand the Veyron, you have to understand the context:
The Bugatti Veyron – a technical masterpiece When the Bugatti Veyron was first announced at the end of the nineties, many people were sceptical that the basic parameters could ever work. With more than 1,000 PS, a top speed in excess of 400 km/h, acceleration from nought to one hundred in less than three seconds, the doubters thought it simply impossible to produce a super sports car with this level of performance while remaining controllable and drivable. But that’s not all. Bugatti had set the bar even higher with its intention to produce a comfortable road car that was suitable for everyday use. The development of the Veyron was one of the most significant technical challenges ever undertaken by the automotive industry. Bugatti engineers had to push the limits of physics and do things that had never been done before in automotive development.
It was an unbelievably achievement, that led to the VW group’s first carbon ceramic brakes, the world’s first seven-speed dual clutch transmission, the first use of titanium bolts in a production car, advancements in carbon fiber monocoque manufacturing (for a production car), etc. etc. It was an amazing moonshot that we should all appreciate. -DT].Â
Now, I know what David is going to say about my take on this, because he’s said it:
And, generally, David is right about this sort of thing. He’s a real engineer, he can appreciate engineering achievements on a level that I’m sure I can’t. But I can’t agree this time. I’m not ignorant of the astounding technical achievements of the Veyron: I just don’t care. Because why the fuck should I? It can go crazy fast for 12 minutes and then you have to spend fancy new car money to just get it maintained again, but even doing that is unlikely, because most owners are not qualified to drive it at 250+ mph, don’t have the room to do it, and as a result can never appreciate the result of all that engineering cost and effort. The vast majority of Veyrons just sit in climate-controlled garages, and maybe get driven at speeds your average Corolla can handle with aplomb to a local Cars and Coffee or whatever.
David said he would own a Veyron if he could. And I respect that. But, at the same time, I honestly think David would be better served by owning, say, a Bugatti Veyron that had been cut in half, lengthwise, so you could see all of the advanced engineering within. It could be something he displays proudly in the Contemplation Room of his mansion, and he can wheel up a chair and sit in front of it, pondering its mysteries and wonder. That’d be a good use of a Veyron, especially because he already has a car that gets driven about as much as the average Veyron does, only without the added benefit of being a nursery for newborn kittens:
The Average Veyron ownership experience really isn’t all that different from David’s ZJ ownership experience, right?
I respect and adore David, but I do not entertain any illusions that he will understand my complete, full-body eye-roll at the Veyron. I just can’t see the point of this sort of engineering exercise when the end result is something that’s so inaccessible and rarified that it may as well not even exist [Ed Note: OK, so I assume you have a problem with automakers spending loads on F1 cars that consumers can never own? I know, you’re going to say “but people can watch them race.” Well, people can watch the Veyron on Top Gear and other programs (the Veyron episodes are amazing), and they can even see them on the street! (I saw one in Miami once; it was awesome). -DT]. Maybe it was a moonshot, but at least the real moonshot had scientific and political value. The target of the actual moonshot was something in the sky that had figured massively in the dreams of humankind for millennia. The Apollo lunar landing program was a crucible that advanced computers, among other things, to the point where a whole computer revolution came directly afterwards.
The Veyron gave VW bragging rights, made Ferdinand Piëch feel cool, and gave some millionaires something new and exciting to tell the garage help to dust.
David does bring up one excellent point I should address, though:
The idea of saying “fuck it, let’s do it” and pulling off some sort of engineering feat is, absolutely, a wonderful thing. I too love that VW was once willing to do that! But I think they could have done that with much different, and much more interesting results.
Consider this: what if VW wanted to do some “fuck it, let’s do it” thing, but actually wanted to do something people could actually enjoy. Something that would actually affect people directly, bring something new and exciting into their lives? It could still be a technological marvel, too!
Here’s an idea: Volkswagen is actually the company that has produced more amphibious cars than any other company. Sure, it was a military vehicle, the Schwimmwagen, with over 15,000 built. The Amphicar, the next closest, only had 3,878 copies! So, what if VW’s moonshot was to make something like a Golf Cabrio-based amphibious car that would sell for, say, under $30,000? Pulling that off would be a hell of an achievement, it would get plenty of attention, be unique in the world (a mass-market affordable amphibious car you could buy easily at a major carmaker’s dealership) and, more importantly, could be accessible and enjoyable to really large numbers of people!
Amphibious cars may seem like a frivolous thing, but is it more absurd than building a handful of cars that can go 250+ mph for 12 minutes and that’s it? And costs millions of dollars and is devastatingly expensive to maintain? I don’t think so!
Look, as you can see, this argument is tearing us apart. We need all of you, the greatest collective automotive hive mind on the internet, to help settle this. Should I just shut up about the Veyron? Should David practice his Veyron-worship in the privacy of his own bathroom? I need your guidance here, before this turns ugly.
Bugatti Updates Its Logo In The Most Boring Way Possible
This Was The Biggest Change In Car Styling And You Probably Never Think About It Now
Sir, Your Certified Pre-Owned Bugatti Veyron Is Here
The world’s most expensive Volkswagen, with all the emotion engineered out. It’s the automotive equivalent of a Jeff Koons piece. Technologically irrelevant, staggeringly vacuous and purchased by the same class of tasteless monied imbecile.
If you are saying this after an experience with the first Veyron, I strongly implore you to find a way to get a ride or especially to drive the SuperSport.
Not because of the extra power. That doesn’t matter. The communication, the handling disposition, the throttle response. The braking feel. EVERYTHING is improved several steps. It is absolutely shocking how vastly different those two variants (pre-SS, and SS) are, but they’re functionally an entirely different model generation. The effort invested to improve the driving experience is immense, and it’s apparent in the first 50 meters of driving the SS.
No, it’s not an old Lotus Elan, but it’s as big a step change as going from a Honda Accord to an S2000. It’s a vastly different experience for the better.
David is right. I love weird, boundary-pushing technical feats. Those often don’t come cheap. Limiting record-breaking stuff like this to just what normal people buy means way, way, way less of it would happen.
It might be silly and unnecessary, but it’s interesting and I want to hear about interesting things and how people make them happen.
All right, I’m responding to myself like a dork, but the more I think of this, the less I think it was all unnecessary. Specifically this part that David brought up:
Lightweight materials like carbon fiber and titanium are starting to matter a lot more with the advent of EVs. Specifically, the desire to eke out more range and the need to offset the weight of a big ol’ battery. Even David’s humble i3 made extensive use of carbon fiber in its structure. Those are absolutely advancements that may not be as widespread now, but that have a good chance at becoming a LOT more mainstream in the near-future. Assembly processes get worked out and streamlined, and once-exotic materials come down in price with more demand from wider use.
The Volkswagen Group wasn’t the only one using a high-end car as an experimental test bed, either. Many of the same people who get up in arms over the Veyron tend to get absolute nerd-boners over the Lexus LFA, a car that Toyota took far longer than initially planned to enter production after it was completely redesigned so Toyota could experiment with and refine its use of carbon fiber reinforced polymer construction. The LFA’s initial concept was conceived at roughly the same time as the Veyron, but didn’t make that switch to the CFRP body until the late ’00s and didn’t enter production until 2010! Every single LFA was sold at a loss and they couldn’t move those things off the lot for years. “Why does this exist and why is it a Lexus?” was the common line of thinking. Now people are finally starting to appreciate that a company with the silly-huge resources of Toyota decided to go balls-out on a V10 supercar so they could tinker with new technology.
I think the Veyron deserves the same respect.
Then there’s the rest of that list. Dual-clutch transmissions are everywhere, from high-end, high-power applications all the way down to more standard sports cars like Porsches and BMWs that we adore. There’s now a seven-speed DCT in the Ford frickin’ Fiesta, for Pete’s sake, so there’s no way you can argue that Volkswagen’s further development of the DCT was just an irrelevant vanity exercise. Many of us may prefer a manual here, but even I have to admit the DCT is easier to use for the masses and faster shifting than I could ever be. If it gets more people to enjoy cars, it’s good.
Carbon-ceramic brakes are now on many, many more performance vehicles at the higher end, too. Sure, these are the multiple-thousand-dollar brakes many Porsche track rats stick in a box for resale in order to run normal pads and rotors that cost way, way less, but they’re out there en masse nowadays. Yeah, yeah, I admit that’s not a great argument for people who view the high-end stuff as wholly unnecessary, but for those of us who like watching race cars, well, they’re pretty common in the racing world now, too.
So, no! The Veyron wasn’t a complete evolutionary dingleberry on the automotive family tree and I will die on this hill. BRING ME FROMAGE.
Sure, it’s amazing what was accomplished, but the fact that VW pretty much threw unlimited amounts of money at it does diminish things quite a bit. Anyone could build a vehicle like that when there’s a bottomless budget.
That said, for the buyers, it’s pure hubris, excess, and fits the mold of the rich person that needs to be eaten.
Not sure Vinfast could get er done.
Here is the thing about this car, and many other super/hyper/whatever cars. On paper, they are pretty silly in terms of practicality, but they do have an undeniable aura about them when in their presence. Is part of the aura just knowing the price and the rarity? Maybe. But, seeing one in person gives a person the funny feeling akin to climbing the rope in gym class. Sitting in one gives the feeling of gratitude to experience it intimately. Driving one is pretty close to feeling like your specific life has a special meaning at that moment, as if the gods of man-made excellence have given you a gift regardless of how brief of time it is. The reason these feelings exist is because you care about cars. Like, really care in a way that 99% of the rest of humanity doesn’t.
This is why these cars are built. This is why they are special. To spend so much effort caring about transportation and not appreciating it in its various zenith forms when given the opportunity means you are wasting your passion, and passion is not an infinite resource.
To sum it up: Have some fun with it for fucks sake, ya prudes 🙂
“But, seeing one in person gives a person the funny feeling akin to climbing the rope in gym class”
A climbing rope is cheaper, more reliable, easier to find, better for you and for the environment than any car, much less a Veyron. So if it’s that sinful feeling in your lower bits that you’re looking for, go climb a rope.
To me, the Veyron was perhaps less a moonshot and more the space shuttle. And maybe in that way, you’re both right.
The Apollo program was full on science, R&D, and a very specific geopolitical + emotional mission that all worked its way into many, many areas of our lives.
The Shuttle program was basically to show such a thing was possible.
I find both cool, but for different reasons.
The shuttle was a horrible waste of money and resources.
Not my opinion but my father’s who was an engineer on the Shuttle’s main engines.
If you think he was negative on the Shuttle you should have heard him go off on the ISS which he was involved with as well.
Some things are not worth the trouble.
I feel the same way about it as I do the Concorde – a really cool thing that once I got older didn’t seem to make a lot of sense.
And as a Gen-Xer, it was a big part of my childhood. I had that blueprint book about it, and they used to roll the tv into class so we could watch the liftoffs/landings. I’ll never forget the utter shock of watching the Challenger explode.
My shock wasn’t so much that it exploded (my teenage brain reflexively blamed Libyan terrorists) but finding out that the engineers had told NASA those seals were going to fail and had begged them not to launch but despite the warning NASA launched anyway because *important reasons*. My father filled me in on that truth long before the news did.
Fun fact: I was also told the actuaries on the shuttle project had long before the tragedy predicted one catastrophic loss per 25 launches. Guess which number Challenger was.
The shuttle program was so insanely ambitious, I still can’t believe they actually pulled it off.
Of course there has never been a business case for sending people into space. Payloads are delivered everyday by unmanned rockets, so maybe it was a waste of money and resources to put anyone into space.
Regardless, they have my admiration for doing it.
“Of course there has never been a business case for sending people into space”
No there hasn’t been save for the research of the effects of existing in space on humans and designing ways to keep humans alive in space should such a business case present itself.
Although satellite repair might be argued is such a case It took a human to fix Hubble but who knows, it might have been cheaper (certainly it would have been safer) to send up a new Hubble.
100% It’s amazing that we could fix Hubble, but we’re not doing that again.
Hubble could only be fixed because of it was developed alongside the Shuttle program. But we’re not doing that again.
JWST is awesome, and I’m really glad it works, but if it didn’t we’d just try again.
Agreed. I’d rather not be sending humans to do a robots job. Space exploration is definitely a job for a robot.
That’s not to say there aren’t humans I’d like to send into space to explore the sun up close…
Not a friendship ender. You’re both right. I got up close and (gasp) touched the cut away, and complete engines on display at an early pre-show walk through of the 2000 NAIAS accompanied by my department head. My first comment was this will be a nightmare to produce and keep functional. He gushed with praise but agreed.
I dislike the Veyron so much. It’s only reason for existing is to show off money. Could they have at least made it good looking? Jason is right. David, I love you, but you can’t marry my daughter.
Team DT for sure.
“I’m not ignorant of the astounding technical achievements of the Veyron: I just don’t care.”
There’s the TL;DR for ya. David is 100% correct, and Jason is well within his right to simply not be interested in it.
If the US military industrial complex has thought us anything, it’s the only real limitation between an idea and reality is the amount of dollar bills you’re willing to light on fire.
“Star Wars” proves otherwise.
https://www.history.com/news/reagan-star-wars-sdi-missile-defense
Idk, I think we should reserve judgement till the sequel.
It already came out….straight to DVD.
Interestingly enough, VW did a ‘moonshot’ project around the same time that I think JT would appreciate a great deal more than the Veyron – the 100+ mpg XL1. Drag coefficient of 0.189, 0-60 in a touch under 12 seconds, 250 mile range diesel-electric hybrid. They sold 250 of them at a touch over 100,000 euros apiece, which makes them almost twice as rare as a Veyron at a tenth the price.
They called this car the VW 1-liter when it only has a 800cc TDI. As objectively rad as the XL1 is, I’m never going to get over that.
1-Liter refers to the gas mileage. The goal was to create a car that only uses 1L of fuel for every 100km (240 US MPG, if Wikipedia is to be trusted). The final “production” XL1s burned 0.9L per 100km (260 US MPG).
My anger has been misplaced!!! I will know apologize by writing a letter to my senator that Diesel-gate punishment was too harsh.
THIS is the vehicle I want to talk about. And see in production. And have laws changed to allow it to be in production at the weight that they managed (safety levels etc) and so on. What a fascinating car that was.
Gentlemen, gentlemen let’s make this a win/win and just agree the Veyron was stunningly stupid.
The McLaren F1 was a marvel of engineering. The Veyron was an ugly turd vanity project by fantasy engineer Ferdinand Piech who determined the absurdly stupid design before dictating that the completely wrong-shaped thing hit the specs he threw down and they kept jamming money into it until they finally got it to work. Just look at the insane maintenance costs it takes to accomplish even basic driving, never mind hitting the pointless numbers. Put wings on a brick and give it enough power and it will fly, but it will still be stupid. No sensible person would have designed it like that and for what? It’s f’n ugly and by all accounts I’ve seen, not great to drive. It purely exists for Piech’s ego through its on-paper specs. It might as well be one of those video game concepts that only live in VR, but even those are more interesting. I see this as closer to a high falutin version of the POS Boomer T-bucket with a “big block Chevy that makes 800 hp” to be driven like a parade float at the head of a line of traffic to get ice cream a dozen Saturdays a year. The only real difference is that the numbers in the T-bucket are never proven, but the idea of it is just as stupid. However, since the shitty T-bucket costs less to build and maintain and the numbers are BS, I think it ends up being somehow more sensible than the Veyron even if they’re both ultimately useless. The only thing that impressed me about the VWgatti was how heavy it is for its footprint. The Veyron is a middle finger to the real Bugatti in so many ways.
The Veyron was as much a marvel of engineering as the F1 was, possibly even more so.
I’d rather have the F1, of course, because I like a stickshift, as old-school as it may be. Plus, it almost certainly handles better than the heavyweight Veyron. Of course, I don’t have $20 million! Yikes!
I, too, often marvel at German Engineering, usually by looking at their stuff while scratching my head and marveling “why the hell would they do it *that* way?” 😉
We’ll never agree on that. Aesthetics and driving experience aside (both of which easily go to the F1, though I unfortunately have driven neither and have to go by quite a number of reviews), I think they’re nearly opposing paths to the same end and that motivation would still make the difference to me. The F1 was the fastest car by a large margin as result of being designed to be the ultimate driver’s road car by one of racing’s engineering greats (which also ended up a highly successful race car in spite of not being intended as such). The Veyron was just to break that speed record so an inheritance engineer who favored the most complicated solution to a problem so he could claim that as a victory to whoever cares about that kind of thing. Nothing else about it mattered—rapid, but vapid. It was about numbers, not passion. They even bought the name, a name that Ettore would have never wanted on a German car with no resemblance to the kinds of virtues that made the real Bugattis so legendary. I don’t even recall ever reading anything about Piech being passionate about old Bugattis, so I wouldn’t doubt that if the rights to the Bugatti name hadn’t been so recently in people’s minds after Romano Artioli’s failed venture and readily available on the market, Piech may as well have tried to revive Delahaye or whatever other once great name plate he could have gotten a hold of that he felt still had enough cultural cache to use since it was nothing but a cheap and cynical way into the ranks of a high-status marque.
OK, OK, I’m well off the subject of engineering, so a final comment to that: not impressed when a Callaway Sledgehammer hit 255 in 1988 with less power, which was basically just a lowly C4 Corvette modded by a guy in CT, not a massively resourced near-largest automaker over 15 years later. If the numbers were what mattered (and that dumb design) and not the driving experience as testimony of dozens of reviews have stated, why did it take so much effort for them to achieve it? If anything that’s dumb engineering. Figuring out the most complicated solution to a problem isn’t smart, it’s a figuratively criminal misuse of resources.
What he said. Forgot about the Callaway! There goes the achievement of 250mph. And they apparently built more than 500 so there!
The Citroen DS suspension was a marvel of engineering – so much so that RR had to give in and license it. Nothing on the Veyron is ground breaking, and while impressive in its excess, it does feel a bit meh. Kinda like a solid gold grille on a 90’s Mercedes 600 SEL.
Sure, it’s cool that they did it, but I’m with Jason: it would be way cooler to engineer something that would have a bigger impact on the automotive landscape. But I’m also more interested in the feats of engineering that go into solving problems within constraints than I am in the biggest, most expensive engineering. It’s also a shame that this kind of cool engineering becomes a fixture for a wealthy person’s garage, rather than being pushed to its limits.
The kind of moonshot I’m interested in seeing right now is someone making the most aerodynamic family hauler they can and getting more range out of less battery. Or a hybrid that can adjust to prioritize power or efficiency on the fly (I’m looking at you, Toyota’s I-Force Max). Things that have some chance of making it to mainstream models. Things that are solving a problem within constraints and trying to do the best with it you can. And challenging others to solve the same problem in their best way.
And it doesn’t have to be efficiency-related stuff, of course. Make the fastest I4 or V6 vehicle. Instead of just throwing cylinders and displacement at it, make something really impressive within reasonable parameters. Then try to outdo it with the same rules.
But maybe that’s just a product of watching MacGyver solve every problem with whatever he had available.
I think part of the problem is that it actually had a huge impact on the automotive landscape. Not sure how to articulate this point, but I think us car nerds would love it a lot more if it hadn’t been the harbinger for these uber-expensive cars that are technically impressive but not meant to be driven. The Veyron was designed to be driven (by the extremely wealthy, but still driven).
Alright, that is fair. It would have been nice to see something impact the mainstream market in ways other than manufacturers spending more money making unobtainable cars for the wealthy to flaunt, but not drive.
But, yeah, the recognition that they could make things with ridiculous performance stats for people to show off is certainly an impact, and not in a good way. You’re right and now you’ve made me like it even less.
I absolutely agree with points on both sides.
The Veyron is an engineering marvel and awesome to examine and contemplate.
However, much of that engineering is the end-point and derivative, the height of evolution of a certain system. Where-as many other super (or hyper, or whatever) cars have tech that is later distilled into products we can all use and appreciate.
If the Veyron had come out years earlier and shown what can be done with VR engine architecture, predating the VR6 GTI, it would be remembered as more of a marvel.
It kinda helped usher in a new age of turbocharging.
If it’s cooling systems showed advancements which could be used in today’s and tomorrow’s EVs. Instead the cooling system was just “more”.
Same with the brakes, they were just “more”.
I agree that the wheels and tires are stupid unless you’re pushing the top speed limits of the vehicle. Why not have multiple options, maybe most buyers would be happy with a 201 mph speed limiter and more normal wheels and tires?
Etc, etc.
It’s still a cool car though.
What Torch said.
There may be an age gap at work here as well. Supercars, like superheroes and supermodels, are what young men aspire to and older men can’t see past the flaws of. I hero-worshipped the Ferrari Testarossa when I was younger. I still wouldn’t pass up a chance to drive one, but would I want to own it? Not on your life.
959 for me and I hear ya
Ferrari F40, and yeah I never thought of it like that. In a way it’s the complete b*llocks to the wind of it’s sheer impracticality and non conformity which help cement the legend of these aspirational cars in the first place.
As a lifelong car guy and VW enthusiast, I’m coming down solidly on your side of things here, Torch. Sure, the Veyron is capable of 250+ mph, but what good is that on any sort of day-to-day basis? As you mentioned, the associated maintenance intervals and costs are so exorbitant as to be obscene, and it’s all packaged in a design that seems to exist solely as some sort of Tasteless New-Money Douche MegaTalismanâ„¢.
I saw one in person for the first time over the summer, being aggressively driven in heavy traffic at Monterey Car Week, complete with requisite throttle blips. So, basically not functionally different than any of the innumerable McLarens in town that week, all of which at least looked better.
I can honestly say that I wouldn’t take one if it were offered to me free of charge.
Volkswagen lost over $6 million per car, even with a sticker price north of $2 million. That puts me in the wasteful display of hubris camp, if you can’t figure out how to turn a profit, or at the very least break even, on the world’s most expensive car, then you’ve designed something that really shouldn’t be built.
I don’t care how much of an engineering marvel it is, it’s butt ugly and I’d rather spend $2 million on cars I find pretty.
It’s both, like the VW Phaeton the Veyron is an expression of Piech’s ego driven desire to build a tour de force. Sure stuff like glued on tires that cost as much as an entire Audi car and disposable wheels is top fuel dragster level crazy but at the time it was beyond cutting edge and cemented the vorsprung durch technik image for years, as long you weren’t a VW service writer or tech.
That the Veyron is irrelevant and Phaeton repair bills are memes 15 years later doesn’t diminish their impact in 2006.
I think that, as a tribute to Piech’s ego, it’s spot-on. As an actual vehicle, meh. I can’t bring myself to care all that much. I think the XL1 is more interesting, and the VAG moonshot that I would most like to have.
The engineering that went into the Veyron was impressive, sure, but as Jason argued, it was a dead end. Even the Phaeton had more impact on the future of VAG products. The Veyron is just a massive sock stuffed into the corporate pants of VAG so that 4-10 people who sit around a large table can feel special.
The XL1 was awesome!
Its absolutely both. You can respect amazing engineering and have all sorts of other feelings about its purpose as well. Do I want to bomb people? I do not, but I love the F-16.
I have similar feelings about the AK-47. As an example of engineering it is a world class masterpiece. It always works no matter how awful you treat it, it is serviceable anywhere anytime by anyone. It is intuitive to use by anyone, even children, with a bare minimum of training or education. It is cheap AF to make, cheap AF to buy, affordable by anyone who wants one. It is easy to crank out in huge numbers with parts interchangeable between units, even those built in different factories at different times. It is widely available anywhere in the world. It was designed in the 1940s, been in production since the 1940s and is still in production today in places all over the world from factories in the US and Russia to tiny tin shacks in Kabul. It is still enormously popular with an iconic design that needs no words or can be customized to whatever its owner wants it to be.
As an engineering benchmark THIS is the way.
Do I like what it is used for? Aw HELL NO!!
Both things can be true and you can just agree to disagree. ????
Crap, we should have thought of this.
https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fill:620:326/g:fp:0.48:0.09/1*02AebEJRvLxv492xyAU6Zw.jpeg