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- Callaway is another car I don’t want: they’re not doing it right. They keep adding high-pressure turbos to the same sized (~350 cu. in.) engine. History has shown that it’s cheaper and more dependable to just add a bigger (non-turbo) engine than to overpump a tiny one. Drag racers can easily get 1500 hp or so out of a small-block for about six seconds but for a street car, one-shot blowup runs don’t count in my book. - DougC
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Why not a Bentley:
A Bentley Hunaudières
http://www.bentleymotors.com/bentley/picture_gallery/bentley_13.jpg
Some nice suggestions here so far.
The Vector is old, though. When did the W12 come out? 1988 or so?
The Bugatti Veyron is exceptionally beautiful. I will believe the specs when I see it, but it’s gorgeous. Yet, I wouldn’t buy it if money came out of my ass. Why? Because it’s not a true Bugatti, and using that name for modern sportscars for no other purpose than sheer profit is heresy.. Puristic, yes. But there you go.
DougC makes a good point. The engine specs of the Saleen look severely outdated. There’s nothing wrong with a good ol’ fashioned American V8, but it belongs in a Cadillac rather than in a sports car. For pure engine finesse, Ferrari can’t be beat. A boxer 12 with 4 valves per cylinder, redlining at 9,000 RPM… yowsa.
I’ll add another supercar to the list. Relatively unknown, but not as ugly as the Saleen: the Koenigsegg CC.
Also, check out the Top 50 fastest road legal cars in the world.
As far as I know, the Vector has never come out, cause the “CEO” of the company, whose name I believe was Jerry Weigert or something like that, ran into problems with the NTSB as far as supplying them with cars to crash test.
As for your link of the 50 fastest road legal cars in the world, it looks like most of them are prototypes, some of which have never made onto the road. So how can they be considered the fastest road legal cars in the world?
The W12 is fairly new, about 3-4 years old. It was created to showcase VW’s W-configuration engines. The W8 can be found in the Passat. The Phaeton is about to arrive here with a W12 engine: 420hp! Price? Starting at $62,000.
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- It’s not that a V-8 is bad, it’s that the V-8 used in the Saleen S-7 is small and low-tech (pushrod?). Calloway’s V-8 is small with turbos. The Ferrari is a small engine also: it’s 12 cylinders with 5 valves/cyl, but only totalling 330 cu. inches or so… If I was wanting a fast car and could afford one in any capacity, I’d much prefer a big V-8 with 4 or 5 valves/cylinder, and no turbo. It would give at least as much overall power, last longer, and would probably still cost a lot less than either of the other two engines. - DougC
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Hmmm. If I were a zillionaire and my neighbor bought one of these, I’d drop about thirty grand on a boring old 1989 Nissan Skyline GT-R R-32 and stalk his ass until I schooled him on the road home. I’d have a good chance of doing it, too.
Hmph… call me old fashioned, but none of these new-fangled cars can stand toe-to-toe with a good ol’ Deusenberg in terms of looking fuckin’ cool… although a Tucker would be pretty close.
No one has mentioned the the ultimate street car ever built, the McLaren F1. 672 HP V-12 in a 2200 lb car. 0-100-0 in less than 10 seconds. Sold new for a cool million, if one was to go on sale today the asking price would be in the 2.5 to 3 million range and there would be a line of buyers. Need service? McLaren flies a technician to look at your car. Look at it here.
In answer to the question proposed in the OP (is the S7 worth 395,000)… I’d have to say no.
Give me a couple other knowledgable guys and some garage time, I bet I could beat it on performance specs… allow me to propose an idea… You spend (aprox) 35k for a Honda S2000, then drop in another 40k to 60k for performance suspension, exhaust, fuel system, tranny, and nitrous kit (I refuse to use the phrase NOS)… I bet you could stand a chance of beating this $395k car, and would be about $300k in the lead… granted, you may not beat the S7 every time, but you’d have a chance, and you’d beat 99% of the other cars on the road.
for those that haven’t driven the Honda S2000, give it a shot… go take a test drive (if they’ll let you)… my dad bought one (he’s retired now, having fun with my inheritance… the way it should be), and he foolishly allows me drive it when I visit… Oh my god, it’s just fast. 9,000 RPM redline, 230 or 240 horses peak output… 6 speed manual… just nice…
Last time I drove it, some mid-life-crisis-type-guy in a `Vette revved his at a redlight next to me… granted, I’ve taken performance driving classes (and I doubt this old dude had), but I blew him away… just a very well built car for $35k… just don’t race a $395k car unless you spend a LOT of wrench time modifying it…
(aside: I don’t work for Honda or any of its afiliates, subsidaries etc… I’m a computer geek that knows how to use a torque wrench)
(aside #2: I’ve driven a car with a nitrous kit only once… it scared the hell out of me… and I’ve wanted one ever since. unfortunately they’re illegal in most states.)
Couple more thoughts… let’s pretend that I have ~$100k to spend on a vehicle…
1- I wouldn’t live in a crappy 2 bedroom apt with 4 computers.
—I’d be in a nice 3 bedroom apt with a lot more computers (maybe even a house) 
2- I wouldn’t buy/build something like a souped up Honda S2000… I’d be rolling in something smooth like a Jaguar XK8. Yeah, I’d get blown off the line by someone driving the S2000 I described above, but day to day driving, I’d just smile and know that I’m cruising in something so much cooler…
also… I do not endorse anyone making any modifications to any car that make them illegal for street use and then using them on the street… the track is fine, but not the street.
also also… if you’re going to do the crazy stuff that I mentioned before… please put in properly ventilated disc brakes… 60 to zero is a LOT more important than zero to 60…
Correct. IIRC there were only a few prototypes made and Jerry Weigert was very reluctant to let any of the car mags test them. He would say later that at the time he was woefullly underfunded, waiting for an “angel” to bail out his company financially and that bad news would discourage potential angels.
When Car and Driver finally did test the Vector, it broke down constantly throughout the test and IIRC the top speed aerodynamics of the vehicle were so poor that C/D predicted the car would become airborne prior to achieving top speed.
This hi-tech wonder of its day featured a 3-speed automatic transmission lifted from a Mobile Home, with the shifter located to the driver’s left between the driver’s seat and the driver’s door.
120 bhp/liter, naturally aspirated. Yes, it is a Honda with Honda engineering and no one will use this car as a daily driver, but is anyone else concerned this motor may be a time bomb?
The word on this Saleen car is that at speed, it generates so much downforce that you could drive it on the ceiling.
Handling might be a little better than you can find in an ordinary car.
I’m wondering how they tested that, Mr. C. Did they build a big indoor track that did a half-loop and continued on upside-down, like a big Hotwheels course? Or are they just using ::scoff: math to figure it out?
Are you saying that you can buy this now for 400k and sell it 10 years later for 600k (or whatever a reasonable return is for investing $400k is)?
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- Having driven a Corvette and an Eagle Talon, I have to say that rear-wheel drive cars are second-rate, no matter what kind of engine they have. You get the high (170? -early 90’s) top speed from the Corvette, but there’s not too many places where you often get the chance to drive that fast. When it came down to really blasting around city streets, the Talon was always a bit quicker. Eagle Talons are the reason 4-wheel drive was banned from SCCA racing: they dominated almost every race for two or three years in a row, beating cars that cost several times as much but that only had rear-wheel drive.
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That actually goes for a lot of supercars and race cars. A Formula One car will drive inverted from speeds 190 km/h and up, provided full downforce settings are applied. I’m sure any decent wedge-shaped sportscar can do the same, provided the weight is not too dramatic, and the speed is sufficient.
Yeah, it’s all math. No one has ever done it for real, as far as I know.
WSLer, you’re right. The list wasn’t restricted to street legal cars alone.
Mr. Blue Sky, a bit of a misunderstanding. I know the Volkwagen W12 is fairly new. I was referring to the Vector W12. VW couldn’t even invent a name, poor bastards. 
And mad props to the S-2000. An awesome piece of machinery! Great engine. I have no doubt that it’ll last, despite the 120 bhp/liter ratio. It’s a Honda V-Tec. 'Nuff said.
Um…yeah, that’s what I’m saying. The highest of high end cars have always been scooped up as collector cars and tend to hang on to their value or demand a bit more later.
Corvette vs. Talon
Can you still by crack for 5 bucks in Illinois?