> It's futile ....
But it is fun.
But it is fun.
A racing car has a function: to get around a track faster than other cars (over a period of laps). To do this, it needs to be versatile: turning, braking, acceleration, fuel consumption, range of vision and suspension (among others) play a role. That's the true engineering challenge. It's why it has wheels, not wings. But to simply go fast, seems a bit pointless to me.
But with such a super car, idk, I'm just left with an empty feeling: why? What is the point?
The Bugatti is a street legal car designed to shatter speed records in a straight line. If that isn't specific function with a formula I don't know what qualifies. The street legal part of a super car is not inherently different than the 1.6L FI hybrid engine regulations of Formula 1, it's just a different set of constraints.
You do not create a winning street legal super car without knowledge, innovation, creativity, determinism, enthusiasm - and by proxy of those joy, competition, and playfulness.
I simply do not understand the gate keeping here. If it's not your thing, fair enough. But please do not invalidate the joy of others because it is real to them.
It's comparable to an mechanical watch. You can make a digital watch significantly better at time keeping and all the other functions, that is substantially cheaper both to produce and maintain. But if mechanical precision devices make your world go around, then I can appreciate that - I'm just not going to pay $10k yearly to maintain an elaborate mechanical wristwatch.
It's a status display in either case, given that one could adequately tell the time on a cheap digital Casio.
Status is generally derived from the signaling of certain values. Wealth is one such value, but in general we assign status to a combination of values. Aesthetic + Wealth = Art. Strength + endurance = Athletics. Leadership + Vision + Knowledge + Intelligence = Innovation.
For me, at least, these super expensive cars have lost all signaling value, except 'wealth'. Because of that, I would almost call it tasteless, senseless and idiotic.
I guess I just cannot share in the purpose of the team making this car go +300 mph. We already have the Thrust SSC (1228 km/h / 763 mph). So what does this prove? That if you want to take corners and need to see what happens behind you, you won't get to go that fast? Why not productionize the Thrust SSC then?
Max speed (to me) is just a senseless metric. It's a bit like clock speed of a CPU. Interesting metric, but only in relationship to other factors.
PS: if you just want the joy of speed, the fix is not a faster car but a vehicle that allows you to experience the speed better, one that isolates you less from the road. A light roadster, a motorcycle, a roadbike (quite a few people actually "graduate" from a motorcycle to a roadbike because perceived speed is higher in lycra and with legs doubling as shock absorbers)