AMS chief editor Bernd Ostmann has been the first mag tester that had the pleasure to ride 400+ in the EB 16.4 Bugatti Veyron at VW test course Ehra-Lessien...
For the metric challenged
402 kph is 249.9 mph
100 kph is 62mph
200 kph is 124mph
25 meters is 82 feet
1950 kg is 4299 lbs!
some impressions what he said about that day...
the track has been kinda damp in the morning, kinda scary at 400km/h, so 111m/sec without crash barries like in Nardo, well not really, rear wing setup to 2° so 40 to 50kg downforce at rear axle engineers promise that thisīll be enough for a smooth ride even on wet pavement...
through the first corner with 220 easily - absolute brutal accelerating up to 300 within seconds a light left hand bend with 380 - looking into the rear mirror - just an enormous spray but just like they told the EB16.4 is a very smooth car to ride even at that speeds...
the sepcial Michelin tires are working just perfect, they were tested up to 500km/h and before a high speed run they require 3bar pressure - this is one of the points the driver has to go through with a check list and a second car key to unlock the high speed mode - here the two front diffusor flaps are closed, the rear wing selects 2° and the body is lowered to 6.5cm front and 7cm rear a sepecial system is monitoring everything and when only one parameter is not ok the car automatically switches to handling-mode...
the first run ended with "only" 380km/h - the car switched to handling because the exhaust temperatures reached critical 970°C - cooling down the car at 220 or 5000rpm in 4th gear...
the weather gets better, itīs much warmer now and engineers force the AMS team to "act" - next run 398km/h - this time itīs the driverīs fault as he has enabled the A/C on the previous cooling lap costing some km/h on that fast run - so again a cooling lap and then full concentration on the last run with nearly 400 the rpm showed 5800 in 7th gear, now it shows 6200rpm at a speed of 402km/h ...
braking is again a new experience 31.4m (!!!) from 100 to 0 with a 1950kg car...
on the other hand acceleration is also outstanding - measured 25m long black rubber from all four wheels after the standard sprint with launch-control - result: 2.5sec to 100 and 7.3 to 200 :shock:
on a side note - at 400 km/h the EB16.4 needs ONE liter fuel for ONE kilometer so they calculated every 12min a gas station on autobahn when driving 400
With that kind of fuel consumption, gas prices really need to go down!