Vroom!

[Kitsune]

I know there is a "dream car" thread around here, somewhere, but it proves elusive this morning. It matters not, anyway, because the Bugatti Veyron is it. By "it", I mean "beautiful", "excessive", and "pure insanity". I simply cannot fathom what it must be like to get behind the wheel of this vehicle.

The extra speed had to come from changing small things on the body. They started by fitting smaller door mirrors, which upped the top speed a bit but at too high a price. It turned out that the bigger ones had been keeping the nose of the car on the ground. Without them the stability was gone.

In other words, the door mirrors were generating downforce. That gives you an idea of how much of a bastard the air can be at this speed.
...

At 137mph, the nose of the car is lowered by 2in and the big rear spoiler slides into the slipstream. The effect is profound. You can feel the back of the car being pressed into the road.

However, with the spoiler in place the drag is so great you’re limited to just 231mph. To go faster than that you have to stop and insert your ignition key in a slot on the floor. This lowers the whole car still further and locks the big back wing down. Now you have reduced downforce, which means you won’t be going round any corners, but you have a clean shape. And that means you can top 400kph (248mph).

That’s 370ft a second.