got everything except the Ion but then when I pressed "give up" I felt dumb. :P Two cars that I have owned before make this list. My first car at #4, and my current car at #11.
It's a ludicrously expensive supercar. Well-known only if you read car magazines but you've probably never seen one on the street before. One of the fastest production cars ever made if you measure theoretical top speed in a perfectly straight line. On the other hand, it's much slower around the track than, say, the Dodge Viper. It didn't make it on my fastest production cars quiz which is determined by lap times not hypothetical top speed.
I mean hypothetical in the sense that you will never achieve that speed on your own on a normal road. You need a very specialized test track... so... it's really pretty pointless and just there to sell cars.
Wow. Theoretical huh? I guess when it came in #2 in the supercar 0-200 mph drag race (R/T, Lemoore, CA) and is the #1 supercar of all time (Edmunds) out of 100, they were theoretical too? The Veyron achieved 0-200 mph in approximately 1.9 miles of road (24.2 seconds). There are numerous areas where a 2+ mile stretch of road is available. As to track performance, weight is higher than some which hurts. Yet, some tracks post Veyron 16.4 times in their top 10 of all time. Top Gear has it at #10 on their track and it hit 253 mph at VW's track. Geez, what does it take? I know of people hitting 185mph (911 GT3). I'm sure the road would hold an AWD Veyron. Pointless? No. Theoretical? No.
matt... look at the fastest recorded lap times around the Nurburgring. There's not a single Veyron time on the entire list. Next, try to find a single person who has EVER driven a Veyron on a public road and achieved it's claimed top speed of 254 mph (409 kph). You can't. Because it has never happened and it's impossible. 200 mph is impressive... but lots of supercars can do that. And this is FAR from the Veyron's claimed top speed. So... yes... the 254 mph top speed Bugatti likes to boast about IS completely pointless for pretty much everybody who will ever drive the car. Because 99.99% of them will never see that speed... rendering it pointless and theoretical.
Top speeds for any vehicle worth a darn are obtained on a controlled track/controlled environment for reasons too numerous to list. Good luck getting a municipality to close a road and provide a safety crew so a manufacturer can make their supercar hit its top speed. Disqualifying a vehicle because it doesn't have a posted lap at one track in the world and it recorded a top speed at a track instead of on a public road is absurd. Maybe I'll go get a doctorate in Google searches too.
Don't forget to call Edmunds. They need to know that despite being an authority in the automotive world since 1966, they are obviously mistaken because a car goes faster on a track than it does on a road and some cars go faster around corners than others.
Any car worth a darn? You measure the value of a car in how fast you can get it to go on a specialized test track? Really? And if a car can't go in excess of 220 mph (about the fastest you'll ever go on the Autobahn) then it's not "worth a darn?" So... Lamborghini Murcielago? Not worth a darn? Ferrari Enzo? Not worth a darn? Then, okay, fine... drop a million dollars on a Bugatti. I guess you'll get your money's worth. Also the Viper beats the Veyron at EVERY race track in the world. Not just that one. I picked that one because it is world famous and lap times there are worth a ton of street cred. It's a much faster lap/track car. MUCH faster.
This quiz brings up some brands and models that are a blast from the past. I mean pontiac (and the grand am) is gone, oldsmobile (cutlass) gone, Saturn (ion) is also, not to mention AMC (gremlin) and although ford has made a tremendous comeback as of the recent few years...the crown victoria has ofcourse also gone by the wayside. Mitsubishi will probably soon be suffering a fate similar to that of pontiac-oldsmobile, amc and saturn.
Because market research tells them that naming your samey-samey snoozemobile something like "M5" or "500e" will convince unoriginal and pretentious consumers that they're buying something classy, sophisticated, and/or refined. Naming cars for animals, big made-up words, or geographic features seems so pedestrian to this market niche.
Part of the problem here is that selling cars (or any product for that matter) across a multinational and multilingual market, such as exists across Europe, brings all kinds of issues when it comes to naming them after things. As Rolls Royce discovered when it went to launch its Silver Mist model in Germany. Annoyingly for RR the word 'Mist' in German means dung or manure. Perhaps unsurprisingly the model was promptly renamed the Silver Shadow. So, while it might seem 'pretentious' or even unoriginal to name a car after a number series it comes with far fewer translation headaches for the manufacturers.
I didn't just make that up... it actually is the real reason why they name cars that way. It makes the model seem more sophisticated or classy in the minds of the sort of consumer I described. If that's the image the company is going for... then... they adopt that naming strategy. It's all about sales. Lots and lots of marketing research behind this.
and it's not like there are not plenty of European brands that go things differently. Rolls Royce for one. Lamborghini. for another.
Hubby still drives my old 2001 LeSabre to work everyday - 200,000+ miles with few repair bills, smooth ride, 27 MPG, and he's man enough to drive a granny car without shame. He said he'll drive it 'til it dies, but it just keeps going.
To be fair, most of these brands are world famous except for 3-4 of the American brands on here. Some, like Oldsmobile, are sold under different names overseas. Chevrolet in this case.
easy, done with 2:36 seconds to spare. Was getting stuck on Ion, Grand Am, Cutlass, and gremlin. Like I've literally never heard of any of those before
Another reminder of the total junk that is produced in America. There's a reason no other country on earth cares about your cars. If you can even call them that.
I missed Bugatti, but I've never heard of that. :(
and it's not like there are not plenty of European brands that go things differently. Rolls Royce for one. Lamborghini. for another.
You wouldn't see most of these cars in Europe.