The world's automakers continue to provide a glimpse of what to expect at the 2012 Geneva Motor Show in March. The latest teaser comes from Bugatti, which will unveil its Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport Vitesse, calling it the world's most powerful roadster - time to invest in some super-strength adhesive for that toupee.
The Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport Vitesse is essentially an open-top version of the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport, which currently holds the world speed record for a production car at 268.8 mph (431 km/h).
For the new roadster, Bugatti's engineers have upped the power of the current open-top Grand Sport, which boasts 1,001-horsepower and torque of 1,250 Nm, to 1,200-horsepower and a maximum torque of 1,500 Nm for the Vitesse. The power increase of the vehicle's 16-cylinder engine comes courtesy of four enlarged turbochargers and intercoolers, with the chassis modified to support the power increase.
Bugatti hasn't revealed pricing for the new car, but don't go expecting much change from US$2 million.
Actually they are doing it to prove that they can, because it takes about 2 or 3 times more money to make a veyron, it\'s not a profit for Bugatti, they\'re just pushing the limit.
Gale Banks has a Duramax diesel truck engine that makes 1200+ hp and 1200+ ft-lbs of torque which is about 1626nm. Plus it will get better mileage.
@Todd: The automotive industry has limited resources, disproportional to what needed to make people\'s life easier. Wasting [limited] resources in order to make a car go from 431Km/h to 440Km/h is NOT a top priority.
Why don\'t they strive for fuel efficiency? Or maybe a car that could fly?
But anyway, if they talk about pushing the limit, where money is clearly no object, why not change that piston engine for a jet turbine combined with generator and two or four electric motors? That would make it stand out even more. It\'s a gas guzzler anyway...
@Short Fuse: There\'s no doubt that that much HP could be produced. The challenge was building a vehicle that could safely be driven on public roads with that much HP. Before, all vehicles with that much HP or more were strictly track run or salt flat run. It was never a question of wether or not they could make the HP.
As for the rest crying about the fuel consumption factor: 1. There aren\'t that many of these cars on the road so the overall impact on world wide fuel consumption by these vehicle is negligible.
2. Come up with a viable alternative. And don\'t fall back on the green communities baby, the electric car. If petrol (gasoline and diesel) burning vehicles are replaced with electric, where is all of the extra, necessary, electric power going to come from? Burning of more fossil fuels of course. And you can\'t discount the fuel needed for the equipment to mine and transport these fossil fuels either.
Fossil fuels are a part of our lives that will not go away unless someone, somewhere, somehow comes up with a workable, mass scale fusion power plant or develops a perpetual motion device as wind is not consistant enough to replace fossil fuels and to redirect enough water into enough water driven power plants would be detrimental to the environment as would installing enough tide driven power generators to replace fossil fuels.