Cycleops
Legendary Member
- Location
- Accra, Ghana
And I thought that was a van you go camping in .
Pointless & impractical vehicles
- Thread starter PeteXXX
- Start date
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StuAff
Silencing his legs regularly
- Location
- Portsmouth
Ugly? Not to all tastes, for sure. I rather like it.
Pointless? Well, it's rather good at its intended function, being very, very, very fast indeed.
Impractical? To an extent. You'll have problems getting the weekly shop in it and fuel consumption struggles to get in single figures. Then there are the servicing costs.....
That said: it's a Volkswagen. This thing is not only very, very fast, you could (budget and tyre life permitting) drive it for many miles in all weathers. Apparently some owners do 12,000 miles a year in them.
The only problem: there's something more practical, and even faster. 987 bhp? Try 1600....oh, and 304 mph.
(Yes, this is more practical. The tyres are much cheaper than the Veyron's. And you don't have to keep replacing the wheels either. Not exactly cheap, but it's something).
Now, this is impractical.....and yes, it is road-legal, somehow......
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raleighnut
Legendary Member
- Location
- One of the 'Elite'
About as much use as the Range Rover off road, I remember walking the 'Cat & Fiddle' in the late 80s and using the old road to drop into Buxton instead of the newer road (it was too steep to Tarmac so they built a longer but shallower gradient) About a mile or so down the track I was passed by 2 smartly dressed couples covered in black peat bog mud (one of the blokes was slightly less filthy than the others) about half a mile on was a Range Rover about 150yds off the 'road' (well more of a farm track by now) buried up to it's door sills in a peat bog. Ah I thought, no wonder they didn't respond to my cheery halloo as I'd passed them.
Jenkins
Legendary Member
- Location
- Felixstowe
Isn't that a Japanese collector that has quite a range of these road going ex-race cars?
There was also the Dauer 962. The Porsche 962 race car converted for road use by Dauer and then converted back into a race car for Le Mans by Porsche!
raleighnut
Legendary Member
- Location
- One of the 'Elite'
Remind me how much VW loses on each one it produces, I remember Clarkson bandying about the figure of 5 million several years ago fine for a 'vanity' product I suppose but hardly a sound business venture. I don't remember it winning any races either, possibly because it doesn't fit into any racing classes.
StuAff
Silencing his legs regularly
- Location
- Portsmouth
Mr Moroi (the Japanese guy who owns the car featured on Topgear.com & which Rory Reid broke on telly) has a prototype of the Schuppan 962CR, built by former Porsche works driver Vern Schuppan. There were a few 962 conversions by various firms- apart from Dauer & Schuppan, Koenig Specials (they of 1000bhp Testarossa fame) did one as well. Moroi's car has race-replica bodywork, not the custom body the few production 962CRs have, plus a racing-spec engine taken from a 956....
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raleighnut
Legendary Member
- Location
- One of the 'Elite'
They need quite a it of looking after too, something this owner forgot about.
then there's this one too
StuAff
Silencing his legs regularly
- Location
- Portsmouth
Oh, not that old chestnut.....VW does not 'lose money' on Bugattis. Yes, it cost an awful lot of money to set up the Molsheim plant and develop the Veyron, but building businesses up from scratch generally does, let alone when you're building something that extreme. Porsche 'lost' money on the 959, McLaren 'lost' money on the F1…Ferrari made money, lots of it, on the F40, but sold about 1200 of them, and they were much cheaper to put together. VW is hardly Aston Martin or TVR, Noble, etc, either. The Chiron is turning a profit, VW will recoup its costs, eventually. Only another $1bn in sales on 500 cars, plus the limited edition stuff....Who said anything about racing? It was never intended for that…Remind me how much VW loses on each one it produces, I remember Clarkson bandying about the figure of 5 million several years ago fine for a 'vanity' product I suppose but hardly a sound business venture. I don't remember it winning any races either, possibly because it doesn't fit into any racing classes.
StuAff
Silencing his legs regularly
- Location
- Portsmouth
Further to the above, the Veyron was not the biggest 'loss-making' car, by far. Yes, per car, but not overall. Mercedes-Benz managed to lose £2.8bn…on the Smart Fortwo. Plus another £1.4 bn on the first A-class (of elk test notoriety). VW also managed to spend £1.68bn on the Phaeton. Given the acres of press coverage, the ability to sell every car they build....Bugatti was a bargain by comparison.
mustang1
Legendary Member
- Location
- London, UK
I wonder if air actually reached the spoiler at the back.
mustang1
Legendary Member
- Location
- London, UK
In another thread: pointless bikes.
Racing bikes (coz you aren't a tdf rider)
gravel bikes (coz they're the same as cx bikes)
e-bikes (coz "i just dont see the point")
folding bikes (why dont you just lock them outside)
new bikes (coz you can buy a 2nd hand one and keep another bike on the road)
People who call "road bikes" "racing bikes" (as I did above to signify a bike built specifically for going fast, much like that Veyron/Chirion/etc)
The best bikes are hybrid bikes coz you can put mudguards on them, fat tyres, disk brakes (wait, i dont like disk brakes either, we used rim brakes since 250BCE so they must be good), threaded bottom brackets (darn those press fit shenanigans), with a basket in the front, a pannier/rack in the back, 3 bottle cage holders, steel frame (coz it's real init), 650 wheels on wide tyres ("dem wide tyres roll better I been sayin that for decades no one listens to me"), and 3 gears IGH is all you need, for £200, 2nd hand, out the door.
Racing bikes (coz you aren't a tdf rider)
gravel bikes (coz they're the same as cx bikes)
e-bikes (coz "i just dont see the point")
folding bikes (why dont you just lock them outside)
new bikes (coz you can buy a 2nd hand one and keep another bike on the road)
People who call "road bikes" "racing bikes" (as I did above
to signify a bike built specifically for going fast, much like that Veyron/Chirion/etc)The best bikes are hybrid bikes coz you can put mudguards on them, fat tyres, disk brakes (wait, i dont like disk brakes either, we used rim brakes since 250BCE so they must be good), threaded bottom brackets (darn those press fit shenanigans), with a basket in the front, a pannier/rack in the back, 3 bottle cage holders, steel frame (coz it's real init), 650 wheels on wide tyres ("dem wide tyres roll better I been sayin that for decades no one listens to me"), and 3 gears IGH is all you need, for £200, 2nd hand, out the door.
Levo-Lon
Guru
A work of art for me and you can go to the shops in it..
To be fair this was VW showing what they can do..not really a production car
A lot of these are novelties clearly built tongue-in-cheek just for the sake of it, and I don't think deserve the flak they're getting.
Also, providing the conversion is sympathetic, subtle and proficient who doesn't love a massively powerful engine swap into something unassuming? "Sleepers" are some of the best modified cars IMO.
For me the most pointless and impractical vehicles are the growing raft of "high-end" / performance chelsea tractors and soft-roaders being cynically shat out onto the market. Needlessly large and heavy high-rise icons of crass conspicous consumption that are often only driven in urban environments and sacrifice materials, fuel consumption, emissions and other road user's safety, visibility and space just to satisfy the owner's mis-placed subservience to a totally false and manufactured ideal of what constitutes "success".
Also, providing the conversion is sympathetic, subtle and proficient who doesn't love a massively powerful engine swap into something unassuming? "Sleepers" are some of the best modified cars IMO.
For me the most pointless and impractical vehicles are the growing raft of "high-end" / performance chelsea tractors and soft-roaders being cynically shat out onto the market. Needlessly large and heavy high-rise icons of crass conspicous consumption that are often only driven in urban environments and sacrifice materials, fuel consumption, emissions and other road user's safety, visibility and space just to satisfy the owner's mis-placed subservience to a totally false and manufactured ideal of what constitutes "success".
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