I’ve been reading up on the Bugatti Veyron recently, mainly because I thought the one in my copy of Forza 3 on XBox 360 handled like crap, huge amounts of oversteer, and it feels like driving a house around the track, I’m sure it was either my lackluster driving skills or a poorly simulated car in the game
However, what I found led me to conclude that it’s not me,and it’s not the game, the Veyron just really ISN’T a good handling car, the general consensus of racing sim drivers and people who have driven the car IRL and can judge it impartially (sorry Top Gear, you’re not impartial, you love the Veyron too much) is that it’s far too heavy, and has a terminal case of understeer at speed, the Veyron was designed to do one thing, and one thing only, and be the best it can at that one thing…
Going *VERY, VERY FAST (Ludicrous Speed?) in a STRAIGHT LINE, precise, crisp handling was an afterthought and had to be sacrificed at the Altar of MOAR SPEED!
Don’t get me wrong, if you want to go as fast as humanly possible in a straight line and not break the Laws of Physics / the Warp Barrier / the Light Barrier, the Veyron is one of very few cars that can do it, and do it easily, however, once you encounter some twisties, or even a simple sweeping corner, all bets are off and it’s into the weeds…
I decided to perform a kind of impromptu “road course” handling test…
One lap of Maple Valley from a dead stop on cold tires
Here’s the results;
Bugatti Veyron; 1:47 - the V handled like a BOAT, with a terminal case of understeer, heavy, but did feel wonderfully solid and planted if that makes any sense, the vaunted top-end speed would not come into play on Maple Valley, as the longest straightaway could be traversed in under 2 seconds, thanks to the V’s massive W-12 engine, still, the whole driving experience felt kinda’ …sterile and disconnected, a mundane blah if you will
McLaren F-1; 1:43 - the F1 felt far livelier and responsive, yet sharp and precise, none of the bloat and mass of the V, the F1 felt like a real *driver’s * car, and required more attention to the chosen line for maximum performance, also, I could steer it with the rear tires, enter a corner, give the throttle a little goose and powerslide through the corner, not the most efficient way to corner, mind you, but definitely the coolest and most fun, if I won the lottery and had to choose between these two cars, the McLaren F1 would be my choice, it just felt more connected to the road
The Veyron may be faster in a straight line, but the F1 hands it it’s bloated, overstuffed arse in the corners, and we all know that on a road course style track, races are won in the corners, and the corners are where the fun is…
In fact, I enjoyed the F1 so much that I took a second lap at speed and was able to bring my lap time down to 1:42ish, shaved off another second…
Ferrari F40 Competitione; 1:38 - Take the McLaren F1, make the handling a leeetle more precise, and the engine just a little stronger and you have the F40 Comp., another supercar that just feels right, with just a tad more punch than the F1, and the ability to obliterate the bloated pig of the Veyron
Okay, okay, so it’s not fair to compare a “S” class car like the V to a “R3” class car like the F40 Comp, FINE, I’ll take the street stock F-40 out for a spin;
Ferrari F-40 street stock; 1:44 - Yes, you read that right, a bone stock F-40 BEAT the "fastest car in the world* on a cold lap around Maple Valley by THREE seconds, AND was a heck of a lot more fun as well, I had forgotten how much I love the F-40, everything is perfectly balanced, the handling is sharp and precise, the engine sings that wonderful Ferrari Aria, and dammit, the car just feels…RIGHT, even moreso than even the McLaren F-1
Ferrari F-50; 1:45 - Unbelievable, a newer car, with newer engine and handling tech than the venerable F-40 is actually .01 seconds slower, the handling actually felt far twitchier than the razor-sharp and precise F-40, in this case, newer is clearly not better
Still faster and better handling than the Veyron, though
Lamborghini Countach; 1:55 - Okay, the first car slower than the Veyron around the Maple Valley track, it had a similar solidity and mass to it, it felt solid and heavy, BUT it also HANDLED WELL, it had no oversteer or understeer, it was balanced, it just needs to shed some unnecessary weight and it’d be able to trounce the Veyron in short order
Shelby Cobra 427; 1:54 - The Cobra is an interesting serpent, many novice gamers find it to be a handful, that is, until you grok the secret of the Big Snake (Dear Og, did I just use “grok” in a sentence?..), that secret is, it actually has TWO forms of steering, the big round thing in your hands that controls where the front tires are pointing is only to give the car a vague sense of direction as to where you want it to go, the detail and finesse of the steering is performed by modulating the gas pedal to induce controlled wheelspin and produce a controlled powerslide, you need to “feather” the gas through the turn, you actually steer it more with the rear wheels than you do with the front…
once again, the Veyron is faster than it, not by much, but it is faster around the MV track, that said, you won’t find a much more spirited, fun to drive experience than you will behind the wheel of the Cobra, the Cobra’s “fun factor” is off the charts, the V feels “sterile”, the Cobra, ALIVE!
TVR Cerbera Speed 12; 1:39 - Another extremely difficult car to drive, Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson is fond of saying that if in the Speed 12, you do one tiny thing wrong, the car will try to kill you, the Speed 12 is definitely high strung and twitchy, even nudging the gas at the exact wrong time will make the rear wheels try to snap out and the car perform a ground loop, yes, even at speed, the secret is to make that trademark TVR (Twitchy Vehicle Rapide? ; ) ) twitchiness work for you, not against you, knowing how much the rear tires would rather be the front tires, you can use it’s propensity to spin out to give that little extra blip of throttle, just enough to break the rear-end grip and induce a powerslide
think of it as an offshoot of the Shelby Cobra/Dodge Viper technique of “steering it with the rear wheels” and you’ll get the point, it may take a few tries, and yes they may be “throw your controller at the screen” frustrating, but once you get the technique down, it’ll be worth it, the Speed 12 goes from “Scary Handful of Terror” to “Dear OG is this Car FUN!!!”, plus, there’s nothing cooler than gliding around a corner in a powerslide, smoke pouring from the rear tires, the car seeming to float and glide through the turn, much like with the cobra, the steering wheel is to give the car a vague sense of direction, the finesse comes from feathering the gas pedal and letting those huge, meaty rear tires determine the direction of the turn
Last two cars;
Porsche 911 (heavily modified, 615 HP); 1:45 - what can I say, I love this car, it’s not the fastest, and I’m still tweaking the handling and downforce settings, but it’s just plain fun to run, as well as .02 seconds faster than the Veyron (it better be, after all those in-game-credits I put into it, for what I put into it, I could have probably bought a Veyron/F1/F40 in the first place, but there’s just something fun about trouncing “newer, better” cars with a “lowly” '83 911
And finally, a dose of “reality” (or as near to it I can get in the game…)
Saturn Ion Redline (mine’s a non-redline base model Ion 2); 2:10 - Bleah, what a horrible performance, windy, asthmatic, power comes on at around 3K and only lasts 'till 5K, and a MASSIVE case of understeer, yep, it drives like a REAL Ion, all right…
And here’s how they stack on my “Power Board”, Fast to Slow;
Ferrari F40 Competitione; 1:38
TVR Cerbera Speed 12; 1:39
McLaren F-1; 1:43**
Ferrari F-40 street stock; 1:44 **
Ferrari F-50; 1:45
Porsche 911 (heavily modified, 615 HP); 1:45**
Bugatti Veyron; 1:47
Shelby Cobra 427; 1:54**
Lamborghini Countach; 1:55**
Saturn Ion Redline ; 2:10
Cars marked with a ** were the first supercars I fell in love with growing up
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