World Record for Production Car Ought to be the Last
Well, I'm happy that someone has finally set a new land speed record for a production car because, in these times, I can't think of a more useless accomplishment, other than winning a "how much you can eat in one sitting" championship.
A Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Super Sport did the deed at 267.81 mph. What's more, the record was made, not on the Bonneville Salt Flats or an endless desert, but on an oval track owned by Volkswagen. And to make it official for the Guinness book of records and the German Technical Inspection Agency, driver Pierre Henri Raphanel made passes around the big oval in both directions.
Not to take anything away from a very brave driver nor the engineers who made this possible, but does it really matter that you can buy a car that will go that fast? Oh… not quite that fast: the first five production Super Sports will sport the same black and orange finish as the record car and all production models will be electronically limited to 257.9 mph to protect the tires. Thank goodness for a little restraint here, folks.
Look, I've always been fascinated by land speed record cars, right back to the day when, as a child, my grandmother showed me Malcolm Campbell's Bluebird at the annual Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto. It's part of the human instinct to want to go faster than the other guy in any form of transport. It's part of my own instinct, which is why I was a road racer for a few years. But coming in a period when the world is trying to recover from a recession caused by greed and when it needs to reinvent itself, cars that boast of 1000 horsepower and top speeds four times faster than the limit where most of us reside are absurd. They're just toys for rich guys who'd be better off spending their money on funding radical new forms of public transport.
However, I'm convinced that this will be the last of its kind. Top speed records make no sense in a world that understands it's not how fast you get there but how you get there safely, comfortably, and with the least environmental impact. That's why the Concorde no longer flies. Mind you, having flown on one from London to New York before they were grounded, I can afford to be smug.
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Funny how some things stick in the old brain. — 394.196MPH was the world speed record for years. Don’t remember the car or driver (John Cobb?) but the numbers is still there – - at least I think so.