Lotus Exige S 240 pwned

The Veyron is ridiculously fast (0-60mph 2.5seconds, 0-125mph 7.3, 0-250mph 55) but I have no idea about handling as it weight is something like 2 tonnes. I doubt its going to be near as good as much lighter cars, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it turn faster laps than an M3.

here's a video of some track footage

http://www.dpccars.com/car-videos/07-25-07page-Bugatti-Veyron-at-Nurburgring.htm

It looks pretty decent ... however, it is really funny though that at one point, there's another car (didn't stop to look what it was exactly) that overtakes it really, really fast ... :D
 
The Veyron is a joke and I mean it literally. After all these years they still can't get the transmission to work properly and it can seldomly ever reach those 400 kmh.

Just like a dragster. A few seconds of performance, a bunch of maintenance.
 
The Veyron is a joke and I mean it literally. After all these years they still can't get the transmission to work properly and it can seldomly ever reach those 400 kmh.

And why are Mercedes still using their old 5 speed gearbox for most of the high horsepower cars?

:p
 
Not horsepower. It's because of the monstrous torque of the engine, exactly why we wanted to avoid the Veyron situation. We limit the engine at 1000 Nm deliberately and the gearbox has to hold 250000 km because of warranty. They don't care, but cash so much in advance that they can switch it several times throughout the car's lifetime, same as Brabus does with our engines and gearboxes driven totally out of spec. We on the other side have the same warranty and testing procedures as the regular Mercedes series cars.
 
Just had a drive in an SL55, I can't for the life of me imagine how the suits at Merc let AMG get away with that exhaust note, so unrefined, so sexy...:devilish:
 
Not horsepower. It's because of the monstrous torque of the engine, exactly why we wanted to avoid the Veyron situation. We limit the engine at 1000 Nm deliberately

1000nm is still way too much for 2wd vehicle with normal tires. Mercedes should develop a 4wd system that can handle the power you put in to those cars.
 
Not horsepower. It's because of the monstrous torque of the engine, exactly why we wanted to avoid the Veyron situation. We limit the engine at 1000 Nm deliberately and the gearbox has to hold 250000 km because of warranty. They don't care, but cash so much in advance that they can switch it several times throughout the car's lifetime, same as Brabus does with our engines and gearboxes driven totally out of spec. We on the other side have the same warranty and testing procedures as the regular Mercedes series cars.

You very well know power is just torque shifted up the rev band so they are one and the same thing. What you are saying is that the older Mercedes 5 speed gearbox is stronger than the modern 7 speed which is more gears but not as tough.

You keep going on about the Veyron 7 speed having trouble with 1000bhp but the Mercedes 7 speed seems to get into problems at not much more than HALF that. Also, the Veyron is an automated manual, the Merc is a pure automatic and still has problems!!!!!!!

Stop dissing Audi when they are far ahead of you in this regard. For gearboxes you really do need to get out of the 20th Century at some point.
 
Torque/power topics - I think you should get a nice beginner book on engines and gearboxes first in order to continue this discussion. Check out Formula 1 cars data for a nice example of high power and low torque requirements. Typical case:

2006 2.4 litre Toyota RVX-06 V8 engine produces 552 kW (740 bhp, 751 PS) at 19,000 rpm and outputs 274 N·m (202 ft·lbf) of torque

The 7-gear was not designed for extremely high torque in the first place, that was a decision and not a coincidence. And what tells you that there is no stronger version available if so wanted? Ever heard of market research and concious product differentiation? Or profitability? It's not a problem to build anything you could ever wish for, but a mass product has to be profitable, "affordable" (fit the given price bracket) and appeal to the brand's customers - that's where the decisions are being made. Mercedes customers have certain requirements which we meet as good as we can and being sporty is certainly not the primary concern. Even at AMG we have to keep comfort in mind. Wasting money on developments noone will buy and which will mean nothing for the brand image would be simple stupidity. Especially if the product doesn't give you any real advantages over the simpler/older version in a given context.

And say, bashing Audi? :LOL: They don't make any automatic gearboxes at all. They buy them from external suppliers like Borg-Warner, Getrag, ZF and Ricardo. Which any company can do just the same. The double-clutch in VW and Audi is from Borg-Warner and BMW uses ZF and Getrag for example. We are the only premium car manufacturer in Germany developing automatic gearboxes in-house, only sometimes we're buying them elsewhere if it makes sense in a given frame.

FYI, the gearbox in Veyron is from Ricardo, a UK-based supplier and generally one of the worst out there as far as quality and reliability are concerned.
 
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Torque/power topics - I think you should get a nice beginner book on engines and gearboxes first in order to continue this discussion. Check out Formula 1 cars data for a nice example of high power and low torque requirements. Typical case:



The 7-gear was not designed for extremely high torque in the first place, that was a decision and not a coincidence. And what tells you that there is no stronger version available if so wanted? Ever heard of market research and concious product differentiation? Or profitability? It's not a problem to build anything you could ever wish for, but a mass product has to be profitable, "affordable" (fit the given price bracket) and appeal to the brand's customers - that's where the decisions are being made. Mercedes customers have certain requirements which we meet as good as we can and being sporty is certainly not the primary concern. Even at AMG we have to keep comfort in mind. Wasting money on developments noone will buy and which will mean nothing for the brand image would be simple stupidity. Especially if the product doesn't give you any real advantages over the simpler/older version in a given context.

And say, bashing Audi? :LOL: They don't make any automatic gearboxes at all. They buy them from external suppliers like Borg-Warner, Getrag, ZF and Ricardo. Which any company can do just the same. The double-clutch in VW and Audi is from Borg-Warner and BMW uses ZF and Getrag for example. We are the only premium car manufacturer in Germany developing automatic gearboxes in-house, only sometimes we're buying them elsewhere if it makes sense in a given frame.

FYI, the gearbox in Veyron is from Ricardo, a UK-based supplier and generally one of the worst out there as far as quality and reliability are concerned.

The Ricardo one cannot be as bad as the Mercedes one that blew up in my old C43 and cost me £3000 to replace. They are always blowing up on mbworld.org forum, it's a known weakness. Mine had done an astronomical 55 000 miles though ....

That probably explains why I am so bitter and twisted :D
 
This thread is a wealth of info. xxx have you guys gotten your hands on an R35 to play with yet?

Not that I knew of, but it's a different division doing the benchmarks so I don't get wind of all of them anyway. For example I just saw we have two Astons in the parking lot that I never even knew of :oops: Beautiful cars! I envy them for the design.

dizietsma: looking at our internal defects statistics, I call that smoke and mirrors. Surely you can blow any engine or transmission if you want to or if you can't drive properly, that is easy. And surely there are also some faulty ones now and then, but in comparison to say Ferrari it's laughable. You need to check out other forums as well, every brand has pretty much the same problems, the bashers, the lovers, the whole package.

But I'll give you that, the quality standards at AMG were pretty low back then, it was a little tuner based in a couple of hauses and one garage. Nowadays we have to fulfill all the QM-standards as for the regular Mercedes cars, a lot of things have changed over the past few years. Btw. the warranty on the gearbox is 250,000 km nowadays. My own 9-year old C-Class with automatic (non-AMG) is pushing 210,000 as of today and still works flawlessly. And I'm definitely not a gentle driver.
 
Not that I knew of, but it's a different division doing the benchmarks so I don't get wind of all of them anyway. For example I just saw we have two Astons in the parking lot that I never even knew of :oops: Beautiful cars! I envy them for the design.

dizietsma: looking at our internal defects statistics, I call that smoke and mirrors. Surely you can blow any engine or transmission if you want to or if you can't drive properly, that is easy. And surely there are also some faulty ones now and then, but in comparison to say Ferrari it's laughable. You need to check out other forums as well, every brand has pretty much the same problems, the bashers, the lovers, the whole package.

But I'll give you that, the quality standards at AMG were pretty low back then, it was a little tuner based in a couple of hauses and one garage. Nowadays we have to fulfill all the QM-standards as for the regular Mercedes cars, a lot of things have changed over the past few years. Btw. the warranty on the gearbox is 250,000 km nowadays. My own 9-year old C-Class with automatic (non-AMG) is pushing 210,000 as of today and still works flawlessly. And I'm definitely not a gentle driver.

No, gearboxes and crankshaft position sensors are a definite problem from that era, you can tell by the number of results you get if you do a search ;) Not much mention of engines though so they are obviously tough. I did like my old C43 though, made a great sound and went speedily.
 
Back then (I wasn't here yet) they basically took a regular series car and plugged in the altered engine and sticked a body kit to it, with a few rounds on several racetracks in different climats for testing. There was no such thing as serious quality control, it was kinda hit-and-miss. But as said, since then we built a full-blown process-driven QM compliant with Daimler guidelines which we have been living for a few years now and it evolves constantly. Also we develop all the new stuff together with the series nowadays, from the first concept on. That stuff takes time to ripe, as you can imagine.
 
I guess so :LOL: or hidden in the bosses garage where I have no access :cry: They just pulled the bunch out because the garages are being maintained. Some others outside as well today, an M5, F599, Viper and something I couldn't identify, no markings at all.

Unfortunately I rarely ever get access to those nowadays, they're there solely for benches and of course for the big bosses over the weekend. The worst thing was having a Pagani Zonda in clear-coated all-carbon body in front of my window for weeks and never being able to drive it :cry:
 
Last time I checked the M3 weighed about 400 kg more and had ~250 Nm less torque. So taking that into account, it actually kicked serious ass out of the Z6.

This is a new standard in ass-kicking. A slower, heavier, less powerful car is said to "kick serious ass out of" a faster, lighter, more powerful car because in theory, if the second car were more powerful and lighter, it would be faster than the second car. If we're going by that standard, my elderly Pontiac kicks serious ass out of the Corvette, too.
 
Back then (I wasn't here yet) they basically took a regular series car and plugged in the altered engine and sticked a body kit to it, with a few rounds on several racetracks in different climats for testing. There was no such thing as serious quality control, it was kinda hit-and-miss. But as said, since then we built a full-blown process-driven QM compliant with Daimler guidelines which we have been living for a few years now and it evolves constantly. Also we develop all the new stuff together with the series nowadays, from the first concept on. That stuff takes time to ripe, as you can imagine.

Yep, don't take me as the Anti Mercedes, I'm just putting the other viewpoint across.

I love the new 6.2/6.3 engine and think it sounds great in the C63. I think the V8 is better than the 12 cyl engine in a lot of ways, ie how it sounds. The V12 is for numbers, the V8 is for the experience.

Is it true you will not be doing another big V8 and will resort to turbocharged smaller engines?

That would be a shame from the sonic viewpoint :(
 
Well, since the topic is already too far gone and has gone to a more general car topic we might as well let it live.

_xxx_, what exactly was Daimler Benz thinking when it purchased Chrysler? I know there were some sound reasons at the time but it really seems like it was a move for them for the worse. I know little of the current finances of your company but to me that just seemed like a horrible idea going into the future. I know it's easy to buy bigger market share but it really seems like that was a piss poor idea. Any thoughts?
 
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