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Comment by wpietri | Hacker News Reader

Even at that price, it'd be a deal; the real car costs $2,998,000. [1] And I expect the Lego version would be be safer, too; any car with a top speed of 261 mph (420 kph) seems inordinately likely to end up wrapped around a freeway lamppost.

[1] https://www.motortrend.com/news/2018-bugatti-chiron-review/

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I think the top speed of a car is a very weak factor in its likelyhood of being wrapped around a lamppost, as I suspect most people in the US have never driven their car at its top speed.

As a note, I have driven a car at its top speed once. I had a mid 90s Geo Metro with the I3 engine in a 70MPH zone and it had a top speed of about 72 on level ground.

I assume that it's not only top speed, but high speed as well. Must be tough to control something at 200mph, but not as much at 70mph

Even at just 200 km/h (~125 mph) you begin to perceive the road narrowing. It's weird.

Must be tough to control something at 200mph, but not as much at 70mph

Ever driven a Metro at 70mph? I'll take the Bugatti at 200mph, thanks.

Having driven a Smart car flat out at 96mph (as clocked by a police officer, thankfully got a warning and not a ticket) and having done over 200mph (not in a Bugatti, but in a comparably priced car) on a track, I agree, definitely will take the later for safety.

Not that a single anecdote refuits your point, but my favorite story about the Dodge hell back when it first came out was that the first one that was sold in Texas did end up wrapped around a pole something like 2 minutes after it was driven off the lot.

as I suspect most people in the US have never driven their car at its top speed.

I've probably run every vehicle I've ever owned until it topped out (or as close as practical). And I've owned some fast ones. I still think it's a mostly useless metric. Even in Nevada with 20 miles of visibility and empty road in front of you, there's a limit to what you can do on a public road without the odds rapidly stacking against you with each added mph. And the vast majority of tracks don't have a straight long enough to get to 260mph. So lot of damned good that 2.9MM car does you on I-405 at 5:00...or on a track day.

0-60, OTOH...

Maybe. My guess is that a car whose speedometer goes up to 300 MPH (and has all sorts of features to make high-speed driving great) is in the category of "attractive nuisance". It's like telling a kid not to stuff beans up their nose.

Looking at the most accident-prone cars, all the ones I recognize are sports cars: https://www.cars.com/articles/whats-the-most-crash-prone-car...

> any car with a top speed of 261 mph (420 kph) seems inordinately likely to end up wrapped around a freeway lamppost.

any car with a top speed of 261 mph (420 kph) seems inordinately likely to end up in an air-conditioned garage and never driven at all.

(That's typically what happens to many of these 'hyper-cars' - they are treated as long term investments rather than vehicles, heaven forbid you affect the future resale value by actually driving it...).

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