This article is surely not relevant to most people, but for a select few it will soon be possible to own a car capable of 300 mph. Of course, one could only achieve that speed on a few racetracks, but you can be sure that some of the mega-wealthy will be buying these cars.
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I doubt there is a racetrack around large enough to achieve 300 mph. Even the big NASCAR ovals would likely tell anyone who wanted to use it to test, to Go Away. Big difference in crashes between Indy’s 230 mph and 300 MPH. Daytona and Talledega restrict NASCAR HP so they run about 200 mph.
It takes a large test track such as the ones owned by automakers or at places like the Transportation research Center in Ohio or Nardo in Italy. I think MIRA in the UK is off the list since it’s high speed test track is not large enough.
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Didn’t the Bugatti Veyron set it’s 267 mph record at the Nurburgring race track?
Fast cars
Big egos
Nothing new here
My 2010 Kia Forte SX has a 150mph speedometer. Road&Track tested one to 137mph. So far I have once briefly touched 80mph. Thanks a lot. I am now suffering from ego deficiency.
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I thought you drove 300+ at the Bonneville Salt Flats.
And of course on the drag strip the nitro classes reach over 300 mph in 3 seconds.
For a fraction of the price of a Bugatti Veyron, you could probably own a turbojet BD-5J and legally cruise at 300 mph way above the streets and traffic, or you could opt for the turboprop version known as the BD-5T and trade 15 mph of cruising speed for about triple the fuel range.
406.2 kilometers per hour equals just under 252 miles per hour which the Bugatti Veyron is capable of.
Or you could purchase an airline ticket and cruise at 600mph.
There’s a big difference between going 600 mph and actually being 600 miles away from here one hour from now.
You drive to the local airport in Austin, TX, get in your fueled up BD-5J, take off and you’ll be in Dallas or Houston before you can Park you car, check your baggage, pass through security and board that airliner.
What good is a fast airplane if the airport is slow?
In fact you can probably drive to Dallas in less time than it takes to fly there in a commercial jet if you count airport time.
It’s like riding the bus vs walking, the bus goes faster than you can walk, but if you have to wait 20 minutes for the bus and your destination is only a mile away, it’s faster to just walk there.
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This thread is about going 300+ miles per hour. Not time parking, checking baggage and suffering TSA. Please stay on topic.
What’s wrong with discussing the difference between going 300 mph and actually being 300 miles away from here one hour from now? It’s not like I hijacked this thread into a political discussion.
Can we discuss what it costs to go 300+ miles per hour or 38% of the speed of sound or a mile every 12 seconds?
Not set at the Nurburgring. It was set at VW’s test track in Ehra-Lessien. VW owns Bugatti. The "Ring doesn’t have a long enough straight to reach those speeds. And there is no run-off, just guardrails and trees!
The current Bugatti, the Chiron is limited to 261 mph because there are no road tires capable of anything higher. Hennessey is dumb enough to try higher than 261 but I’d guess the others aren’t willing to kill their test drivers.
True, but these aren’t street cars, use huge slick tires and have 9000 hp to launch at more than 4 G’s. None of these proposed cars are anywhere close to those numbers.
Which is pretty impressive considering how insanely long that final straight is.
Fun trivia - the BD-5 spawned a bizarre car:
the Owosso Litestar/Pulse was made using the molds for the BD-5 after Bede was court-ordered to stop making airplanes as part of his sentence for taking money from people and not actually delivering the airplane kits.
He figured he might as well make money on cars while waiting out the sentence - as soon as it was over he quit making the Pulses and went back to airplanes.
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True, but that long straight is uneven, uphill and scary close to guardrails!
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You misspelled “really, really fun.”
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