The Celtics Invade

Yesterday evening I had a hurried Deepa calling me begging to take one of the cars in the stable to an art gallery event last night. She had asked me to come but I had emphatically refused because it isn’t my style to show up at a glitzy event for no real reason. Anyway, so I gave her the car and told her to be careful because if it got ruined I would pull it out of her income for the next two decades. Things were just fine and the car was returned by 1am. I went this morning to get my glasses fixed and decided to take the car out for a spin although my official reasoning was I needed to drop the car off at the other house where it stays. To my bewilderment, at 8:30am I hear what sounds like a song of off one of those PBS specials with the tapdancing and expressionless people. Okay, I’m not as ignorant as I purport because I recognized the artists as “Celtic Woman” and they actually did play on PBS a few months back but I didn’t get to see the performance. I liked the song playing but that isn’t the point of this post. The point is: who the hell plays a song like this when in this sort of car? Are you just being cute? It’s not like you bump this on your way for a night out. Anyway, I figured I’d upload the song and let you guys listen to it. Next time, put on a real driving song or I’ll drive even if I don’t want to go. All ******** drivers should be insulted. LOL

Hit play if it doesn’t start by itself.

[http://blog.hishamrana.com/media/celtic.mp3]

Oh, if you haven’t figured it out, that’s not English. It’s a Gaelic song written originally by Clannad in 1983 for an Irish drama. Ten years after it was written, the song was played in Patriot Games and Volkswagon played the song in its commericials. This version is just amazing as it demonstrates Orla’s unbelieveable vocal ability. I will say that it isn’t the typic Irish jig and some may say her voice is too perfect, but everything has a time and place.
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July 16, 2005 | Filed Under Uncategorized | Comments Off

Bugatti Veyron 16/4 beats Koenigsegg CCR Top Speed Record

I was just reading my copy of Evo magazine and saw that the Bugatti Veyron 16/4 recently surpassed the Koenigsegg CCR’s top speed record. The Bugatti has a 16-cyclinder engine with four turbochargers making a cool 1,001 horsepower. It clocked in at 400kph (248.5 miles per hour) at Volkswagon’s Ehra-Lessien test facility. This is the same place where the mighty Mclaren F1 set the 387kph (240.14mph) record in 1998 which it held for almost seven years. The car to break that record was the Koenigsegg CCR back in February of 2005 at Nardo when the car ran 388kph (242mph). The difference is that Nardo is a huge oval and the Mclaren only went 372kph (232mph) so it remains to be seen if the CCR can beat the Veyron 16/4 at the Ehra-Lessien facility.

Something interesting to note is that Veyron has been delayed for a very long time because of the car’s stability at those high speeds. In normal conditions, you won’t be able to reproduce the 400kph top speed due to safety reasons so Bugatti came up with a novel solution:

Every owner will be supplied with a special second key, made from aluminium in best Bugatti lightweight tradition (originally it was going to be silver but it was deemed to be too heavy). With the car stationary, this key has to be inserted to the left of the driver’s seat, down by the sill.

The words â€˜Top Speed’ then appear on the facia and the car begins a series of safety checks on such things as tyre pressures. Once complete, the chassis squats to just 65mm above the road at the front and 70mm at the rear. From now on, the diffuser flaps remain closed and the angle of incidence of the rear aerofoil is minimised to reduce wind resistance. The final action of this high-speed mode is to disable all limiters (the car is otherwise limited to 375kph). Touch the brakes, however, and the car reverts to standard settings.

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