Do You Care About Crazy Top Speed Figures?
At this week’s Geneva motor show, we’ve had a lot of speed freaks. We’ve had the bonkers - and overambitious - 2080bhp Arash AF10 which could theoretically do 300mph, the Bugatti Chiron with its 261mph top speed , and the Koenigsegg Regera which - while lacking a top speed figure - is said to be capable of 0-250mph in just 20 seconds.
The thing is though, do you actually care about these top speed figures? With a less crazy supercar like a Ferrari 488 GTB you could feasibly hit the top whack at a runway-based event like V Max, but if we’re talking about top speeds that are the exciting side of 250mph, you’ll struggle to find somewhere to actually achieve it.
The Nardo test track in Italy is famously not that smooth, and who can forget Top Gear’s efforts at maxing out the Veyron and Veyron Super Sport, which actually involved going to VW’s own Ehra-Lessien test facility, where’s there’s a massive straight. In fact, it’s 5.4 miles long - so long that one end cannot be seen from the other thanks to the curvature of the Earth.
When the Hennessy Venom GT hit 270mph, it did so on the Kennedy Space Center’s 3.22-mile runway. Not the sort of places you’d be able to rock up and ask if you can have a quick punt, in other words.
There’s also the problem of tyres to think about - the new Chiron’s boots have been developed especially for the car by Michelin, but even they aren’t able to take the car past 261mph, which is why the car has an electronic limiter. Should any of the current crop of ambitious start-up supercar company’s products actually be made and not remain vapourware, they’d run into the same trouble while trying to prove the top speed claims.
In a lot of ways, top speed figures are more about bragging rights for the owners. But as petrolheads, what do you think of such stats? Vote in the polls below to voice your opinion.
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
On the other hand … to get awesome fast accelerations .. often gets paired with high top speeds. The Chiron 0-200kmh in 6.5 seconds is brutal.
Yes, but kinda not really? I’m impressed that they can keep upping the antie and the engineering required is awe inspiring, but even if I had the money, a Bugatti is over-hyped. Really the only thing you get for that price is plenty of attention from lesser primates (non car people).
Topspeed no, weight yes, beauty yes, funfactor yes but mostly price
Acceleration and handling
personally, I thing ever since Bugatti cracked the 250 mph barrier, everyone wanted to prove that they could do it as well. Many have tried but very few succeeded like Koenigsegg. But that’s another story. Rather than making a car that could handle well, people are getting carried away with numbers, especially the top speed and horse power figure and the end result is a car that’s hardly usable on public roads and whole race for the top speed has gone out of hand.
If you look at Pagani on the other hand, they don’t know what the actual speed of their cars are because they don’t care such figures. For them, the image and driver experience is more important. And that’s what missing from most high end cars these days. No wonder I like just very few hypercars. The only way to improve this would be stop the idiotic trend of top speeds achievable at half the cost of the main rival. There’s a reason why the Chiron costs $2.4m.
Well I agree with what you said, and I have to say that the Chiron cost that much because people VW has an objective with this car and is to have a car that not only is able to have those figures, but also do it effortlessly, comfortably and in a way that anyone that can afford this car can do it without any hassle, and that indeed takes a hell of a lot of money to develop and build, to the point that VW was losing money with every unit that was being built of the Veyron, and while the price reamains somewhat similar compared to the first car at the time, they still gotta make a way to get that lost cash somewhere with this car, which is being built over the Veyron.
And that’s why I love Underground Racing. They do 250+ in a mile and 230+ in a half-mile. No VW owned private test track needed.
Top speed is nice but chances are I will never touch it or it will be a rare occasion if I do. So acceleration is what I can use and excite me the most so grip and acceleration are what I look for, and the x factory of fun
Its like watches that can go to 300m underwater, not many owners do it, but its nice to know they can- and that others can’t.
well i do care about top speed…. why? i hear you asking…. well simply because if the car’s top speed is 60km/h then it’s obviously not that fast, thus making me care about it, but it’s not about the numbers, it’s about how many smiles can it generate