Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport

[DJKOR]

If you have a spare US$2.1 million laying around, here's something you could consider. Take a Bugatti Veyron, remove it's top, and this is the result. With it's top on you still have a top speed of 404km/h, but with it down, you can still get a respectable 347km/h.

Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport | Wired.com Product Reviews

[1stKill]

Quote-Though the Veyron has almost twice as much power as the super-snake, its all-wheel-drive and 14-inch-wide tires grip the ground with the tenacity of a junkie clutching a five-dollar bill...

Clarkeson on Top Gear took one of these for a spin in an episode recentley....one word Perfection. B) he said it was the best car he had ever driven hands down.

[mrcrazyrolla]

If you have a spare US$2.1 million laying around

We could organize a GB? Might save 100 grand each.

[cruzer]

man this car is nice

[whitestivo]

this car is dreadful

leave the roof on, it was perfection before.

removing the roof means they've added extra weight elsewhere for rigidity and made the car slower

whitestivo

[DJKOR]

removing the roof means they've added extra weight elsewhere for rigidity and made the car slower

To make the Grand Sport, Bugatti's engineers had to do the same thing, only with a giant hole in the middle. It was like designing a picture frame to break rocks.

They had to bolster the floor, doors and B pillars (where the back edges of the windows rest) with acres of

carbon fiber

. They had to turn the topside air scoops into structural supports for protection during a rollover. Then they had to sacrifice 100 virgins and have the production facility in Molsheim, France, blessed by druids.

The result is the

most structurally rigid convertible in the world, which, miraculously, weighs no more and goes no slower than the coupe on which it is based

. With the transparent roof removed, air resistance limits the Grand Sport to 217 mph, but you'd want that roof on for a top-speed run anyway; the wind could rip your face off at around 245.

Funnily enough, the Grand Sport is lighter than the normal Veyron. The curb weight of the normal Veyron comes in at 2034.8kg, while the Grand Sport comes in at 1968kg.

[Mr De Angelo]

Id be pretty damn scared of getting sucked out the top at that speed with the top off!

[Twin_Cam_Z]

in the last episode of top gear they put the bugatti against the Mclaren F1, and man the Veyron killed the mclaren!

agree with whitestivo....prefer the roof on!

[Hiro]

removing the roof means they've added extra weight elsewhere for rigidity and made the car slower

To make the Grand Sport, Bugatti's engineers had to do the same thing, only with a giant hole in the middle. It was like designing a picture frame to break rocks.

They had to bolster the floor, doors and B pillars (where the back edges of the windows rest) with acres of

carbon fiber

. They had to turn the topside air scoops into structural supports for protection during a rollover. Then they had to sacrifice 100 virgins and have the production facility in Molsheim, France, blessed by druids.

The result is the

most structurally rigid convertible in the world, which, miraculously, weighs no more and goes no slower than the coupe on which it is based

. With the transparent roof removed, air resistance limits the Grand Sport to 217 mph, but you'd want that roof on for a top-speed run anyway; the wind could rip your face off at around 245.

Funnily enough, the Grand Sport is lighter than the normal Veyron. The curb weight of the normal Veyron comes in at 2034.8kg, while the Grand Sport comes in at 1968kg.

It's probably like the Ferrari F50 and a bunch of other cars (or the Boxster/Cayman), in that it was designed from the start to be a targa and thus hard-top versions are no lighter or stronger.

[whitestivo]

so are we saying that if they built a hardtop from scratch.

I wonder why they designed such an amazing car as a convertible from scratch

i smell marketing.

whitestivo

[Hiro]

so are we saying that if they built a hardtop from scratch.

I wonder why they designed such an amazing car as a convertible from scratch

i smell marketing.

whitestivo

Of course it's marketing. For a long time targa/convertible versions of cars have been seen as inferior to the hardtop version (911 is a perfect example). More recently, car manufacturers have been building convertible models on dedicated platforms/chassis or not offering coupe/hard-top equivalents (Eos for example), using metal-roof convertibles (basically anything Merc, and others) or simply designing the convertible first and then basing the hard-top off that (Boxster/Cayman, BMW Z3/Z4) to try and make convertibles no longer the poor cousin.

With the Veyron, maybe it wasn't designed as a convertible/targa and then made into a hard-top, more likely it was designed with the intent down the road to release a targa version which did not compromise on performance etc. You could say that since they are the same weight, maybe the hard-top is actually heavier than it needs to be, but because it has a quad-turbo W16 it wouldn't matter.