Bugatti

The special features of the Bugatti W-16 engine are amazing. For example:

• The engine has four valves per cylinder, for a total of 64 valves.
• It has a dry sump lubrication system borrowed from Formula 1 race cars, along with an intricate internal oil path to ensure proper lubrication and cooling within the 16 cylinders.
• It has electronically controlled, continuously variable cam timing to create optimal performance at different engine rpm settings.
• It has a massive radiator to deal with all of the waste heat that burning 1.33 gallons of gasoline per minute can generate.

Everything about the engine is superlative.

And it is remarkably compact. It measures just 710 mm (27 inches) long, 889 mm (35 inches) wide and 730 mm (28.7 inches) high. This is the beauty of Bugatti's W-16 approach -- the engineers managed to fit 1,000 hp into a reasonably sized package.

In order to harness all of this horsepower and torque, you need an amazing transmission...

The transmission is unique, in particular because it has to harness about twice as much torque as any previous sports-car transmission. It has:

• Seven gears
• A dual clutch system
• Sequential shifting
• A paddle-driven, computer-controlled shifting system

This computer-controlled system is identical to the sort of system found in a Formula 1 car or a Champ car. There is no clutch pedal or shift lever for the driver to operate -- the computercontrols the clutch disks as well as the actual shifting. The computer is able to shift gears in 0.2 seconds.

See Audi: Uninterrupted Power: Technical Details for more information on dual-clutch systems.

It would be almost impossible for all of the torque available from the W-16 engine to flow out to just two wheels without constant wheel-spin. Therefore, the Veyron has full-time all-wheel drive. By applying the engine's power to all four wheels through a computer-controlled traction-control system, the car is able to harness all of the engine's horsepower, even at full acceleration.

See Audi: Quattro for an explanation of the Quattro all-wheel drive system. See also How Differentials Workand How Four-Wheel Drive Works.

• 1,000 horsepower is equivalent to roughly 2.6 billion joules per hour. A gallon (3.8 liters) of gasoline contains 132 million joules, so a 1,000-hp engine has to be able to burn just over 20 gallons of gasoline per hour.
• However, car engines are only about one-quarter efficient -- three quarters of the gasoline's energy escapes as heat rather than as power to the wheels. So the engine actually has to be able to burn at least 80 gallons per hour, or 1.33 gallons (5 liters) per minute.
• Let's convert over to metric. Gasoline requires about 14.7 kilograms of air to burn 1 kilogram of gas. Air weighs 1.222 kilograms per cubic meter at sea level. A gallon of gasoline weighs 2.84 kilograms. So the engine has to be able to process 2.84*1.33*14.7 kilograms of air per minute, or roughly 45 cubic meters of air per minute. That's 45,000 liters of air per minute.
• If a V-8 engine is turning at 6,000 rpm, it can inhale a total of 24,000 cylinders' full of air per minute. If it needs to inhale 45,000 liters of air per minute, it works out to roughly 2 liters per cylinder-full. That's a 16-liter engine.

Source: HowStuffWorks

Bugatti was founded in 1909 in Molsheim, then in Germany, now France as a manufacturer of high performance cars by the Italian Ettore Bugatti.

The company went out of existence in 1963

It is now owned by the German company Volkswagen AG.

They now build a very exclusive and limited production of high end sports cars under the Bugatti name.

how much does a bugatti watch cost?

Bugatti Veyron 16.4 has the luxury of a Rolls-Royce, the performance of a Formula One car, and the drivability of a Honda. It's a combination that leaves the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren, the Ferrari Enzo, and other wannabes in the dust

Its 8.0-liter 16-cylinder engine has four turbochargers and produces 740 kilowatts (1001 metric horsepower, or 987 hp). And you want torque? How does 1250 newton-meters sound? The car reaches 100 km/h in 2.5 seconds from a standing start, and 300 km/h in 16.7 seconds. It has a top speed of 408 km/h..

The structure is made of carbon fiber and aluminum. The brakes are carbon ceramic, and the exhaust system is titanium. There are 10 radiators to dissipate the engine's heat. To keep the car on the ground when its winglike shape develops lift at high speeds, there are front and rear air diffusers and a massive rear spoiler that deploys electronically to generate a drag force of 0.6 times the force of gravity. Ride height varies with speed from 125 to 66 mm.

To go beyond 375 km/h (233 mph), the driver must stop the car, insert a special key, and go through a checklist ("Seatbelts, check; oil, check; last will and testament, check"). At top speed, the Veyron runs through a full tank of gas in 12 minutes, for a fuel economy measured in gallons per mile. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rates it at 3.846kpl and 7.692kpl in normal city and highway cycles. In average for a kilometer Bugatti Veyron 16.4 needs Rs186. Presumably, though, mileage won't be a factor in anyone's purchase of this vehicle, ever. From 400 km/h, the car can stop in 10 seconds, covering more than a kilometer while doing so.

In the rarefied world of the supercar, so-called volume production is measured in hundreds, sometimes just dozens of cars. By that standard, the 300 examples of the Veyron 16.4 that Bugatti Automobiles SAS, of Molsheim, France, expects to build-50 per year-qualify it as a volume car.

Bugatti built just 7000 cars between 1909 and 1956, from Grand Prix winners to the legendary Royale ultraluxury car. It seems the greatest of ironies that the storied French marque was revived by Volkswagen, parent company of Skoda and Audi. A pet project of former chairman Ferdinand Piëch, the development of the Veyron took eight years. Industry analysts don't expect the company to recoup its investment.

But what a glorious piece of engineering it is. Volkswagen should be proud. Perhaps even Ettore Bugatti, a man of immense flamboyance, ego, and engineering genius, would be pleased.

Looking at the cost each Veyron costs about Rs 7.5 crores (you can buy 25 Mercedes Benz C- class for this money). If we are lucky Amitabh or Sachin may buy this car and we can see it on our favourite news channel CNN-IBN or NDTV Its our choice!