It’s the first and fastest car that players of the eagerly-awaited Gran Turismo 5 video game will drive, but we unpixellate this dream machine and give you the maths behind Adrian Newey’s automotive creation, the X1...
0.98...
At 4.75m long, the X1 isn’t a lot longer than your average family motor like a Ford Focus (4.17m) or VW Golf (4.2m), but it is a lot wider at 2.18m. But then it does have to corner astonishly quickly… It’s also one heck of a lot lower at 0.98m. In fact, it’s so low that it’s only 3cm taller than the maximum height allowed for a Formula One car. So getting in the real car, as in F1, could be a bit tricky if you’re as tall as Mark Webber (180cm+) but not as used to getting in a low-slung car as Mark Webber. The advantage of the Sony PS3 version will be that it is much easier to get into. Worldwide, sofa cushions might only sit an average of 42cm from the floor, but they are much more easily accessible.
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X1 power comes thanks to a six-cylinder 3,000cc engine with direct injection. This 3-litre V6 produces 1,483bhp. That’s about 283 more horses than the most powerful production road car out there, the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport. The X1 kicks out this much grunt at 15,000rpm. At this rate, that means all six of its cylinders and pistons are displacing exploding petrol vapour every 1/250th of a second. That’s why V6 engines make such a lot of noise. (Twin turbos also help in this respect.)
450...
The current maximum speed recordholder in the road car production stakes is, of course, the latest Veyron, which has topped out at a staggering 431.072kph (267.856mph), but the X1 trumps even this, with over 450kph (280mph) possible. Hold on to your hats. (Actually, there’s no need, as you’ll have a clear perspex hood between you and the elements.)
9,800...
It’s been a while since fans (ie the things that blow air, not enthusiasts) were used at the top level of motorsport to aid aerodynamics – 1970s ‘fan cars’ are legend in F1 history – but the one on the X1 creates up to 9,800N (that’s Newtons, which measure weight compared to gravity, not mass), which is equal to 1.63G. It’s the wings that really create the downforce, though, thanks to the ‘Venturi effect’. At 100kph (virtually a standstill for a supercar), it’s barely even having an effect at 0.17G. But by the time you get up to 400kph, it’s creating 2.78G and making the X1 stick like a limpet to the road surface.
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Most supercars will nowadays reach the traditional mark of 60mph (96.5kph) in under four seconds, but even dragsters, the traditional fast-starters of the motorsports world at around two seconds, would be left standing by the X1. It goes from 0–60 in a face-melting 1.4 seconds, about the same amount of time it takes to say “1.4 seconds”. And it gets better: doubling that speed takes just double the time – 120mph (193kph) in 2.8 seconds – showing the brutal acceleration curve is, er, actually not a curve, but a straight line! It doesn’t level out much up to 200mph (320kph), either. This takes just 6.1 seconds. Are your eyes watering?
618.75...
Despite stopping quite a lot of tarmac from being seen at any one time, the X1’s racing bodywork is as light as a feather compared to a beefy grand tourer’s. A Veyron weighs a whopping 1,888kg, but an unladen X1 computes to just 545kg. Even its gross weight (ie with fuel etc added) only makes it 615kg. That’s actually about as much as the original Mini, which weighed in at 617kg. A Mini, as its name suggests, is quite a lot smaller (the original one from back in the 1950s anyway). Mind you, everything is comparative, and 600kg is a lot in some contexts… Lateral and longtitudinal G-forces (ie when cornering and going straight) at 300kph are 8.25G. Mark Webber has recently revealed that he must only weigh 75kg – no mean feat for a six-foot guy – effectively the same as his shorter F1 counterparts. Even being as svelte as this doesn’t stop G-forces making you weigh more than eight times as much, though – 8.25G = 618.75kg for your average racing driver. That’s about the same as a fully-grown polar bear – or a 1959 Mini, of course!
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