What would happen if the Bugatti Veyron took on McLaren's F1, Ferrari's Enzo, Porsche's Carrera GT, and Ford's GT at the dragstrip? Here's your chance to view the virtual road test on your own desktop.
Now that we have actual performance numbers for the Veyron, it's trivial to compare them with those of the existing supercar constellation: McLaren's F1, Ferrari's Enzo, Porsche's Carrera GT, and Ford's GT. Just look 'em up, right?
But what would such a supercar showdown look like? Well, that's another issue. Even if you could cajole, trick, or bribe these five into a high-noon face-off, witnessing them perform their best quarter-mile runs simultaneously, side by side, is nearly impossible. There'd inevitably be a missed shift here and an overcooked launch there to spoil the whole thing. However, through the miracle of Motor Trend's 3D Virtual Road Test, your fantasy is our command.
Together with our partner, CarSim, we've added three more lanes to our virtual dragstrip. Our 3D car-modeler, Mike Edwards, has created each car's shape from numerous photos and drawings, and the performance of the cars is powered by detailed electronic data files of the single best runs we've ever recorded for any of them (except for the McLaren, for which we owe Autocar magazine's testers a big thanks). And all these cars' data were corrected for the same temperature, humidity, and air pressure.
So click below to download a racing fantasy. And remember, this is a 3D world you're entering, so be sure to mess with your cursor to explore the action on the track from any perspective that strikes your fancy. A preview, so to speak, of Motor Trend's idea of what heaven looks like.
Additional features and hints • Hold "Shift" key and left mouse button while moving mouse to relocate your viewpoint.
• Click on the "View" tab and then "Multiple Results Window" to try different pre-selected perspectives.
• Click "View" tab and then "Show View Controls" to display sliders for zoom, rotate, and tilt.
• Click "file" tab to discover options to save BMP or JPEG images of your favorite scenes.
• The horizontal slider lets you scan through the animation to any time you wish.
• Be sure "Loop" is checked so that the animation will continuously replay/
• The "Performance gauge" should be green for the animation to play at actual speed. If it is red, or partially red, try lowering the frame rate to improve the player's performance.
• "Ghosts" is a function that repeats the preceding action up to 19 times at following distances selectable by the adjacent slider. Caution though - only very fast computers can utilize this capability, and we suggest leaving this setting on "0".
• For more detailed information, visit
http://www.carsim.com/downloads/animator_hints.php/Sorry, but currently, the Virtual Road Test doesn't support Mac viewing.
Virtual Drag Race Animations
Click here to download the "Dream Drag Race" virtual acceleration test.