Rumormill: Veyron GT with 1,350 HP and 264 mph top speed coming
Click above for high-res gallery of the Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport
The Bugatti Veyron is already considered to be the supercar supreme with a rarefied 300 unit production run for the 1,000-hp beast and a top speed of 253 mph. The Veyron's already ridiculous stats will be getting a boost if you believe a "secret and confidential" memo stating that Bugatti will end the Veyron's production with a bang. The rumored GT edition of the Veyron will have mad sick power to the tune of 1,350 horsepower and 1018 lb-ft of torque, and upgraded ceramic brakes with new active aerodynamics to control all that power. Apply all that force to the pavement and you'll hit 62 mph in a mere 2.4 seconds while being able to stop the car from there in another 2.2 seconds, and its new top speed will reportedly be 264 mph. To keep the mighty Veyron planted to the cement, the rumored GT will also receive an upgraded electronic stability program. That would make abundant sense considering power is being increased by 30% over the "base" Veyron.
If you are one of the 200 or so people to already own a $1.4 million dollar Veyron, you reportedly won't be left out in the dark, either. According to the alleged memo, all Veyrons will be able to be retrofitted with the upgrade. The memo states that the Veyron GT would be available March 2009 and be the last iteration before the next-gen Veyron arrives around 2012.
[Source: Motor Authority]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Carlos 1:07PM (9/15/2008)
Thats pretty cool, now they should make a 20k Bugatti so I can own one.
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Torrent 1:50PM (9/15/2008)
These days, you can get 500 horsepower (GT500) for about 42K. Just double the horsepower (and price) and you got yourself a real seller. I'm almost 99.98% sure it's not that simple, but still.
nuu-culer 2:16AM (9/16/2008)
Great. Just what the world needs, another supercar for rich Arabs.
Actually, it's a pretty good indicator of the global economy and how the middle class is going away and soon there will only be Rich and Poor.
Heckuva job, Dubya!
David(Postal) 1:10PM (9/15/2008)
That is insane it must have some godlike traction to keep that down!
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kal326 1:11PM (9/15/2008)
I still think I'll take 10 GTRs and keep the change.
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Russell 1:25PM (9/15/2008)
Talk about bang for the buck.
Torrent 1:53PM (9/15/2008)
Shoot, with that leftover change, you could buy 2 ZR1's and a Kia Rio.
bajabusta 1:16PM (9/15/2008)
i love speed like the rest, but when would this ever be applicable?
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zamafir 1:29PM (9/15/2008)
naught to sixty? sure, every stop light.
Turbofrog 1:14PM (9/15/2008)
While the Veyron was ridiculous, does no one else think that it's getting downright stupid that they're releasing a vehicle that requires 350 more horsepower to achieve a top speed that's 11 mph faster?
The Veyron is such a tragically flawed vehicle, testament to the fact that cubic dollars can solve any problem.
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MikeofLA 1:27PM (9/15/2008)
As you get faster the power required to push through the increased air pressure is cubed. It's not linear. think of it this way. To get a car to 155 you need maybe 270 hp... to go 99mph more requires 731 hp more! Adding 11mph at the end of a Bugatti's top speed is saying a lot more then adding 11mph to the top of a BMW or Audi's top speed. Still an insane speed, amount of power and amount of money.
Franz 1:33PM (9/15/2008)
The Veryron has always been about engineering excess. You gotta admire them for building something so awesome and over the top, even if it is kinda pointless. As for the extra 350hp just for 11mph, the faster you try to go, the more the horsepower requirement to get there increases. I had posted this way back in April in a similar top speed debate:
"In last months issue of European Car Magazine, engineering editor Mike Febbo drew up a very handy equation explaining the intricacies of aerodynamic drag. I wont bother to try and reproduce the article in it's entirety here but basically it states that as velocity doubles, aerodynamic drag will square. Substitute power to overcome that drag and the equation changes, so now as velocity doubles, the power requirement cubes.
He also brought up another critical issue: tire spin. According to Mike, to get top speed numbers in excess of 260 mph in a road car will require numbers anywhere from 1500 to 2000hp. In a two wheel drive car, there is a very real possibility of breaking the tires loose when the drag becomes too much... it'll basically be a tug of war between the aerodynamic forces and the horsepower, and the tires are the weakest link. I dunno about anyone else, but the idea of a burnout @ 260mph would scare the hell out of me if I was driving.
Finally, not many tire manufacturers would be willing to guarantee the integrity of a street legal radial past the 260mph mark.
Just a bit of knowledge I thought I'd share with you guys."
Turbofrog 1:47PM (9/15/2008)
Yeah, I realize the cube-law of aerodynamic drag (I actually spent a few days last week helping with wind-tunnel testing for an aerospace project). Though it didn't come across too well, my point was that this car has fundamentally poor aerodynamics because engineering work started after they'd decided on a design, which is a terrible, terrible workflow. For reference, the Veyron has a Cd of 0.41 in normal operation, and 0.36 in its silly top-speed mode (which reduces its average 720 lbs of downforce to a scary 120 lbs).
Aerodynamic design is a compromise - more downforce will nominally mean greater drag, of course, but the Veyron can't even use that as an excuse. It's just a really inefficient design.
Temple 2:35PM (9/15/2008)
Let's be honest, most performance cars aren't very practical and are somewhat 'ridiculous' when looked at pragmatically. Nobody drives over 150mph regularly, even on the Autobahn, much less 100mph anywhere else. You don't need a car that does 0-60mph less then 5sec, hard-suspension make the ride harsh, big engines kill millage, and sleek aero takes up interior volume.
But there is a reason why we love Ferraris and Veyrons and not Camrys or Caravans. Its the excess in speed, the competition in engineering that make cars like the Veyron interesting. There might be slower RWD cars without all the technical wizardry of DSG, AWD, etc that may be funner to drive, but that's also missing the point of why fast cars are made to go even faster.
chad.dawkins 4:12PM (9/15/2008)
Actually that's one of the things that makes the Veyron so cool to me. The car was designed and had claims made about its performance before they even knew they could do it. It turned out the car was horribly unaerodynamic and the power it had(1001) wasn't enough to get it to 250 MPH. They had to work around all that stuff to get it to do what it can do. The guy who ran the thing wouldn't let them redesign the car.
Lou 1:15PM (9/15/2008)
Now maybe it can hang with a Hyabusa or ZX14 in the quarter. It still leans the wrong way in corners and looks like a bar of soap. A smoking fast bar of soap. At this price, if I had the money, I would buy an ex Shumacher F1 car and use the Ferrari track support program to play with it. This much power on the street is useless, especially on the lane and a half backroads where I live.
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Andre 1:20PM (9/15/2008)
Man, that thing will be even more a monster than it is now. But somehow I feel little uneasy about a 1,300 HP daily driver for a Rich person...
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2004m3driver 1:21PM (9/15/2008)
Geez if this is true, what the hell is the point. 1001hp was enough to have "fun" on regular roads. 1350 is just so you can say you can. Like "oh yeah I needed the 1001lb of torque so I can tow my 300ft yatch with it"
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Benfolio 1:23PM (9/15/2008)
Just in time for Ike-swollen gas prices.
I kid, I kid!
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why not the LS2LS7? 1:23PM (9/15/2008)
Oh, that's exactly what was needed.
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