Oh, I'm sure he could have; he just never got around to it. He had a lot of irons in the fire. He might even have forgotten he had the E-type. (Sort of the automotive equivalent of that bit from the 1989 Batman: "Do you enjoy eating in this room?" "Huh? Oh, yeah, it's great. ... Actually, I don't think I've ever been in this room before." :)

>Though I have to ask, kill
>him how? as in not able to handle such raw power and performance? or
>that his heart wouldnt be able to stand up to the adrenaline rushes
>pre replacement?

Possibly both. I mean, the car does have (supposedly, in the promotional materials) more than a thousand horsepower. It'll go 253 and a half miles an hour. I'm actually given to understand (mainly from its appearances on Top Gear) that the Veyron is a shockingly well-mannered car, astonishingly easy to drive, but if I suddenly and unexpectedly came into possession of one, I'm not sure I'd have full confidence in those reports. :)

Pre-heart-replacement, there was also the small matter that he never knew when he might just keel over dead, or at least unconscious, and the Veyron is (by that timeframe) an older car that doesn't have an autopilot. It can't take over and get itself safely stopped, or to the hospital, or what have you if the driver suddenly loses consciousness. Thus, not only might it kill him, it might kill someone else - not a risk he was prepared to take. (He also never rode a motorcycle during that time period for the same reason. In 2032, modern motorcycles still can't drive themselves; it's one of the things bikers use as a point of pride over car drivers.)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Well, Clarkson does actually have one. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Oh, right, I forgot one. Ben kept two of the Italian sports cars - the Gallardo, as mentioned above, and the Ferrari 308 GTB, for reasons obvious to anyone from the '80s.

Mind you, those aren't the only Italian cars in the warehouse, just the only full-on sports cars. Only a completely heartless individual, for example, would have gotten rid of the Fiat 500 Tony bought to annoy one of his professors during his semester of industrial design classwork at the Istituto Europeo di Design in Rome.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Lifestyles of the rich and famous :D

_____________________________________________
"Walls are meant to be broken." - makes sense both figuratively and literally.

Really? I think it looks like a 1970s Lamborghini drawn by a ten-year-old who saw a poster of one once, but can't quite remember what it looked like.

Anyway, the thing I love about the Veyron is not that it's unbelievably powerful and faster than most general aviation aircraft, although it is and it is. It's that it's been meticulously engineered to work as a car. It was built by one of the world's foremost automakers specifically to stand up to decades of regular use, like - indeed, it's held to a higher standard than most - regular cars.

I suspect the Ultimate Aero, on the other hand, was built for one purpose and one purpose only - to go faster than the Veyron, once, so that they could say so in the press release without lying. It might well do a mile an hour or two more than the Veyron, but it'll be hot and squirrelly and uncomfortable while it does it, and once it's done it a couple times it'll break down spectacularly and never work again. I mean, come on, their webpage has a carbon fiber background pattern. How meshback is that? :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

On the other(third?) hand, the Veyron was tested on a track with a NINE KILOMETER straight, on which to get up to speed. The PREVIOUS holder of the title, Koenigsegg, invited Bugatti to test the car on the same track THEY did...but Bugatti declined. So, the Italians aren't exactly innocent of the 'look, our car is FASTER' thing. That said, it's still a very lovely car, with a lot of heritage evident.

Germans.

The Veyron is a VW, not an Italian car.

And, well..As much as I'd rather own a Koenigsegg (I think it's a better looking car, and if I'm gonna be dropping ~1Musd for a car, I care more about my personal asthetic then a few kph.) I have to admit that the Veyron is a better engineered car.

But I agree with Mr. Clarkson: A car like that should make you feel like you're 12 years old. And about to die.

--
-Pasha ("I can't relax when you have the keys to a V8 BLENDER!!")
What was that feeling again?
Oh yes.
-Rage-

THAT...depends on your point of view. Bugatti was a FRENCH company, founded in Molsheim, by an Italian, Ettore Bugatti. Later sold to Hispano-Suiza, which, as the name suggests, was Spanish-Swiss. And now, the brand is owned by VW, which is indeed German. The Veyron, specifically, was designed by a Slovak, and built, once again, in France. BUT, the heritage of that car, as you look at it as well as the brand, is clearly Italian, harkening back to Bugatti's creations.

As an aside, related to what Bugatti made in the way of cars...21 feet long, fraction under 170 inches wheelbase, 7000lbs and with a straight-8 of 778 cui...and all back in 1927. Gods what a car!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugatti_Type_41

EDIT: adding the remarkable Royale. Which sort of reminds me a little of a Maybach 62, in a way, sizewise at least.

I first read this as "Muspelheim" and nearly borked.

Modern Bugattis are a brand name used by VW. In Germany.

Someone sold the name, k?

Cheers,
Cal.

Wallace Calumny Broom Worx Xtreme Performance Specials. Brakes optional.

Uh, yeah, the post you were responding to covered that.

>In Germany.

... Except that the actual Bugatti factory is in France.

Well, okay, it's in Alsace, and that's often been kind of a point of contention. But at the moment, it's part of France.

I think one of the aims of this whole "Eurozone" nonsense is to make distinctions like that progressively less relevant anyway, but there you are.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.