The special recipe of it is hard to describe. It is a weird but nice mix of passion, chanting of esthetics, and admiration of fine human engineering; of course a pinch of British humour is also indelible. The guys are passionate, not only about cars, but about anything that eminates beauty. Unforntunately, only several clips and full episodes can be found in Google Video, and none of them are among my favorites.
One of the most astounding machine is the Bugatti Veyron built by Volkswagen. To many people's surprise, Volkswagen actually owns quite some exotic brands like Audi, and Lamborghini; in 1998 Volkswagen bought the right to make cars under the famous Bugatti name. The result is a magic machine that packs as much as 1000 brake horsepower into an astounding looking car: Bugatti Veyron, TWO V8's, 4 Superchargers, 1000 BHP, 0-60 in 2.5 sec, and top speed limited at 252 mph. To put it in perspective, for most cars, making 0-60 in 6 sec would be a pretty good mark already. This is by far the most powerful car, and probably one with the highest price tag: $1.7M when I last checked. Now what's the use of such a car? None in quotidial errands.
However, it's not the blind touting of power and price tags that amazes; it's the proud we feel as a human being that such a magnificant machine could ever be made, and some one would commit all the humongous resources that is required. To be fair, how many people would purchase such a car? And in fact, words are spread that Volkswagen made this car just to showcase the capability of it, and they do lose money on every single Bugatti they sell; and I would rather believe it.
Another fine example is an episode in which the three hosts each drove a super car to le viaduc de Millau, the Millau bridge (slightly boring version), in southern France. Why?
Supercars aren't just glorious poster material for kids' bedroom walls. They are a prime example of man's superiority over animals. Our ability to construct objects of awesome power and exquisite design is what drives us, what inspires us, what constantly says to the dolphin: 'you may be pretty clever, but where are your opposable thumbs, smart arse?'Such a bridge could only be born in a nation that never skimp on esthetics; and such appreciation of engineering could never be felt by Honda drivers.
Our celebration takes us through France until we reach another example of mankind creating splendour just for the sake of it - the epic Millau Bridge.
- One fine clip available on google video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6250016339336225105
- It's just road, seat, us, the end.
1 comment:
Hi, ##NAME##, I was looking around on the internet for supercars information when I came across your blog. Looks Pretty cool stuff. Interesting, and takes a bit of time. Keep it coming. Rex ##LINK##.
Post a Comment