Ferrari Mailing List: Re: BUGATTI WOW ! - (NFC)

[Mike Fleischer (themightytoe]

It isn't

Trucks have made that kind of power and torque for ages.  The trick to 
the Veyron is getting the power to the ground efficiently.  Dodge, when 
faced with this problem in their Vipers decided to put a truck motor and 
a truck transmission in the car back in 1993.  Everyone else in the US 
copied that.  Mercedes have monster torque in their motors...  But hey 
don't they also have a truck division? 

The weight comes from most of these manufacturers not designing for 
lightness and also using ODM parts (like the brakes coming from Brembo, 
and the clutch from AP racing, and the headlights from Siemens and the 
Engine controllers from Bosch, and the tires from Michelin, and the 
wheels from SSR, etc...)  And of course you must put 20 airbags in your 
car these days...  Look at the Lambo Reventon, they did a set of custom 
wheels for that thing, and charge 1.7 million...

Costs are out of hand completely.  Why does an F1 car cost >100 million 
for what is essentially 4-5 vehicles?  Because its all hand made and 
custom built?  I'd say most of the money goes into R&D costs (engineers, 
mechanics and support people fall into that category also), even those 
cars get a bunch of ODM stuff.  I'd be downright shocked to find that 
Ferrari's F1 had differently sourced brakes than Williams...

My $0.02



Fellippe Galletta wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 10:26 AM, LS <lashdeep [at] yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>   
> > I understand your points. But Murray's statement about not being able to
> > build the F1 and Ferrari's about not being able to build the F40 again all
> > are period statements. They always find a way some how...it is natural
> > evolution and has a lot to do with materials technology, electronics, etc.
> >
> > Nobody (including VW) has put that much thought into the challenge of doing
> > a McLaren F1 style car today. Murray had A/C and a CD changer in the
> > original and it only weighed 2600lbs!
> >
> > VW took the easy way out and didn't impress anyone with the expended brain
> > power. They just accepted standard practice for the difficult items (like
> > weight) and counteracted with lots of complication. And, notice I didn't say
> > "counteracted with lots of BHP", because that is a good thing. That
> > VW powerplant is so big and heavy...a disaster. There are so many areas
> > where they could shed weight and still meet all safety standards. The Veyron
> > is a very lazy effort.
> >
> > LS
> >     
>
>
> I sincerely believe that the safety regs have outpaced the Engineers in
> terms of getting the weights down. Either that or it's completely down to
> dimensions, which admittedly keep growing every generation of car!
>
> We've seen HP shoot up dramatically since the early '90s, and not all of it
> necessarily because of displacement. When I see $450k purpose built
> supercars like the Porsche Carrera GT fail to weigh less than 3000 lbs, it
> raises the question of whether the manufacturers are really lazy. Remember,
> when you take away monetary design constraints from Engineers, you are
> giving them exactly what they want. And if they fail, you have to ask
> yourself why.
>
> There's probably some middle ground between our arguments (i.e. dimensions),
> but making a 2500 lb supercar with a 6.0 liter V12 might take awhile to make
> reality.
>
> With respect to the Bugatti Veyron, it's not so much an engineering exercise
> to make the power, but perhaps to harness it and keep it from destructing.
> If these cars last, I think props are due because all those radiators feel
> like a recipe for trouble!
>
> Also Clarkson pointed out that Ricardo had to engineer the transmission from
> scratch as this motor is more powerful than an F1 car (wayyy more torque).
> Maybe that is an overrated exercise as we have dragsters with that level of
> power, but maybe it isn't.
>
> FG
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