Fastest VW

Land speed record for a production car.

http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/110999/the-new-bugatti-waiting-for-superman-no-more?mod=family-autos

YIKES!

Not to in any way detract from the Bug's performance, but technological progress can be very interesting.

The Porsche 917/30 was touted as 1100 Hp in an aero extreme racing car, and it got to 250+ MPH on the best of road courses. But that was in 1970!

Actually, 1000 Hp ain't all that rare today. This summer I visited many car shows where 1000 horse Camaros, Challengers and 30s hot rods were not alone. Of course, their aero perfomance was probably well shy of 267 MPH. Many after-market engine manufacturers actually advertise that kind of hp with big inch V8s sporting blowers - both turbo and belt driven.

What impresses the heck out of me is that with the wonders of electronic fuel management and a killer ECU, these damn engines start easily, idle at 800 RPM and can actually be driven down to the local burger joint. 267 MPH is impressive, but so is the ability to go cruising around the fair grounds at a Good Guys show with that kind of engine spec!

But that Frenchy seemed like he liked his curent job!

If I recall correctly when James May drove the original to the 250-something limit he was close to the top and said something like "at this speed the tires will only last another 10 minutes, but that's OK because theres only enough fuel for another 8 minutes". So it seems Bugatti thought of everything in the design process :)

"At full throttle in the Super Sport, the world comes at you in one ferocious, howling, soul-shaking, Newtonian sneeze."

I think it was Liebling who said he could write faster than anyone who could write better, and better than anyone who could write faster, but this guy....

This guy just broke the land-speed record for mostest adjectives piled up in front of a verb.

As the good (relatively speaking) sisters drilled into my heathen skull, those adjectives are actually piled in front of a noun. If it was a verb, they would be adverbs.

Could have been adverbs in front of a noun too. A tingling pileup, anyway.

In this case it's a whole pile of adjectives sitting in front of a noun.

The 917-30 driven by Mark Donahue set a world lap speed record in 1973 at Taladega speedway 221.16 MPH. Obviously, that record has been broken many times. It would have been interesting to put the 917 on the salt flats and not have to contend with the loss of speed going into corners

Holy Mother of God . . .

Why???

Because we can.

WOW.....great read.

That is VW's top end (pun intended) and OK very cool.......but where they make money and compete with Toyota to be #1 is in America. The new Jetta is a very cool looking car but now looks like every other Ford out there. Not to mention the new lower price comes with a solid rear axle and drum brakes.

Yes sir dumb down the car for the dumb Americans. Brilliant!

Now you can get a more refined car if you buy the top of the line Jetta but I think VW is thinking about being #1 in tearms of units sold rather than building quality cars.

IMHO a truly sad thing to happen.

Was reading this morning about VW's stated quest to surpass Toyota. Included in that plan is a new lower end Boxer-type vehicle.

Shades of 914. Veddy interesting . . .

here's the story about the mid engine VW

http://blogs.insideline.com/straightline/2010/07/volkswagen-bluesport-mid-engine-roadster-reportedly-gets-greenlight-for-production.html

Those flat topped fenders remind me of the Plymouth Pronto Spyder concept car - which I happen to think looks terrific. Mid mounted, rear engine 230 horse turbo engine from Neon or PT GT would work.

http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUS257&q=plymouth+pronto+spyder&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=_Ty6TLyYEY2osQOs_p2yDw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CCMQsAQwAA&biw=771&bih=404