Blue Bug

The Bugatti Veyron.

In these days of hypercars it’s easy to forget what paved the way. It’s nearly twenty years since this monster was unleashed to the world!!

This car was a leader in terms of performance figures but it was more than that in terms of being an engineering sledgehammer. In fact it’s only really the advance of electrical engineering that has enabled anyone else to catch up.

Glueing two monster V8’s together to make a monstrous W16? You’ll need some extra cooling… ten radiators in fact!

It’ll need some stopping from over 250mph (which would take less than a minute from standstill by the way). 14 brake pistons help, but the air-brake like a jet plane was also required. 10 seconds from top speed to standstill will make your eyeballs pop out and lungs explode.

At full chat it would pull in 47,000 litres of air per minute. It’ll take the average adult 9 days for the same amount.

Worth remembering as well that each and every one has been individually hand built.

Possibly the trickiest part of making this picture was deciding the angle, I’d say it’s certainly not the most graceful of cars – more of a sledgehammer than a svelte beauty.

I figured that a top-down view would be interesting to show off those huge intakes and engine – whilst also giving the possibility of the impression it could be monstering along at 250mph.

It’s not a good advert for ecological sustainability but it is a good advert for the determination of engineers to try and bend the laws of physics.