The thing is, power to weight ratio is important for acceleration, but not for top speed. For top speed, it is power to drag. Weight is out of the equation.

220 hp (or 300 hp) just isn't enough for a car to hit 200 mph unless it was incredibly slippery. An airplane could, but not a car.

~ Matt

 

From the article:
At press time, the GT and the other cars in the slide show are the world's fastest street-legal cars in production.

Since the Enzo isn't in production, it isn't on the list. The list is only cars you can buy new now.

~ Matt

 

There you have it :D Thanks for clearing that up, stupid little details that I don't want to pay attention to lately :p

 

I don't really see the point of such a list nor am I particularly impressed with any car that can reach 250 mph.

67 years ago Auto Union (Audi) built a car that reached 267 mph on a highway (not some salt lake monster). I'm sure they could have added some headlights and blinkers so that it could have been used as a street car as well.

http://www.kolumbus.fi/leif.snellman/reco.htm

 

You should be particularily impressed with any car that reaches 250 mph on a road (Nardo Prototipo proving ground), not the salt lakes as you suggest, especially production cars. The fact that you aren't speaks to you lack of engineering and design understanding.

 

The Auto Union from 1938 did not reach 267mph on the salt lake. It reached 267 mph on a German highway and it was based on a Grand Prix car from the 30's (not some heavy 6 wheel monster).

So you're telling me that you're impressed with someone that adds headlights and blinkers to a essential race car and reaches a speed that engineers reached 1938 on a concret highway?
Are you aware of how much development went into cars, engines, materials, aerodynamics since 1938? The engineers from 1938 couldn't just go on Amazon and buy a book about aerodynamics. They also couldn't just take a 6 Liter engine and a turbo off the shelf. They couldn't just base their design on an existing LeMans race car design. They couldn't simply order carbon fibre. They had to develop everything from scratch.

I'm impressed with the engineers from 1938 that build a car that reached 267 mph on a highway. Although I'm still more impressed with the engineers that built the atom bomb or the rocket and its accessories to land on the moon.

 

add without computers to the end of that and you'll have the reason why im flabbergastedly impressed.

 

No offence dude, you're completely ignorant to modern production car design. It's clear. Since you mention other milestones in engineering and science let me say, I'm an aerospace engineer and your arguement would be like me claiming:

"Gee, I'm not too impressed with the Concorde, the X-1 went supersonic 60 years ago"

If you honestly believe that cars like the Enzo, Koenigsegg, Saleen, CGT etc etc are just race cars with some headlights slapped on, well, sufficive to say, you're sorely mistaken. Above that, what do you think the cars they went 200+ mph in back in the 30's were? grocery getters? they were more race car than any current production supercar is.

 

Engineering is impressive when its truly new and unique. These cars might be unique from a customer perspective but are not particularly innovative. It's not like that a Saleen has no similarities with a Porsche 962. Besides $600,000 is not exactly a bargain. If a car costs over 10 times more than a Corvette, it'll better be extremely fast.
There are production cars I'm impressed about, but I generally don't think producing a car that costs way more than a house is particularly impressive. With enough money you can do anything.

This yellow car is impressive from an engineering perspective. (55 HP out of 360cc without turbo lag and higher mileage than any diesel or hybrid car.)
http://www.swissauto.com/e/projekte....Display=200004
http://www.autoweek.com/article.cms?articleId=103222

 

I guess it's going to be a difference of opinion then. I have respect for all things engineered, that comes from not only being an engineer, but having a fascination with how things work. I can appreciate and am often blown away by the thought and engineering involved in some of the most basic things. Let alone a 250mph car that offeres convinience features, seats two, can be driven legally on the street, runs on pump gas and will keep you alive in a crash among a long list of other remarkable features of these cars.

Engineers are largely underappreciated in society, and your attitude is representative of that. If you think only innovative engineering is impressive, you, like so many others, are not only taking for granted the world around you, but are largely missing out on the beauty of human ingeneuity.

 

I agree that engineers are largely under appreciated in our society. After all I'm an engineer myself and have been working in R&D for 9 years now (not car related though).
I appreciate the work that went in these supercars, but I'm usually missing the innovation part of it. I'm just more impressed with a Corvette (speed/money), a Prius (innovation), an Atom (light) or even the RX-8 (it's the only Wankel there is). After all they were engineered by some engineers as well.