good reads from your blogs
7:40 was the veyrons lap time????? thats pretty poor if so.i know these are probley test drivers.but still would think a veyron should do better..
Nurburgring lap times:
7m43s --- Lamborghini Murcielago
7m50s --- BMW E46 M3 CSL
veyron handles like a miget trying to ride a oiled up hippo bare back?
I wouldn't say that, but hey 7:40 is a respectable time, and remember it was a non-profesional driver, the fastest laps at the ring are set by Michael Vergers (in a Radical SR8 6:55) and Mika Hakkinen (McLaren F1 GTR 7:11), and let's be honest if the Veyron is only 29seconds a lap slower around a 20km track with traffic and without an F1 driver at the helm is not a bad sign
However the Nissan GT-R has just set a 7:38.
The reason that VW don't want the Veyron track benchmarked officialy is because of the car's image as 'the fastest car' (hence the debate here, I think it's the most COMPETENT car on the planet, but certainly not the fastest, after all it is 2 and a bit tons worth of car!), if the car was 'officialy' benchmarked around a track, on which other cars have set times, and it was beaten, then they would loose a little face.
If you remember, the only reason the Ferrari F60 (Enzo) has been stig'ed is because it was a private car that was lent to the BBC, not because Ferrari would give them a car to do it.... which they had with all their other cars.
At the end of the day it's a flagship car, and it would not look good to be tarnished in any way at all.
Having said all that, it is still the fastest 'mass' run production car on the planet (if the limited hand made run can be considered a mass that is). They will certainly build more Veyron's than the SSC.
As for the rust, do you think that Bugatti will let that happen for long, if you need a repair/service they fly out an engineer(with parts) to the car to do it for you, not like you need to drop it off at the dealer (thankfully, as driving a Veyron into the centre of London would be a right PITA!)