Why is the Bugatti veyron so poorly designed in the drag field?

Look at the first table,





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_鈥?/a>





the veyron is at 8.02





A De Lorean creates less drag (6.93) for goodness sake!





Is drag sacraficed for downforce or something?|||Cooling.





One of the engineers' biggest issues was balancing the aero and cooling.





You could tape up all the vents, but the engine wouldn't last long.|||it is too heavy|||coz it was not designed as a drag car, its a road car|||the weight...





the size... (large)





and the weight...





and with a car with that much power you need ALOT of drag, otherwise it'll spin and crash in no time|||Well the Veyrons aerodynamics vary based on what form its in(Normal, Handling, Top Speed). So the car is aerodynamic but when you're going 250 MPH it important to be aerodynamic, but it's more important to produce downforce because the car WANTS to fly.





Also the weight has little to do with it's aerodynamics. Something else is that the Veyron was designed *** forwards. In theory a supercar is supposed to have it's engine and all that stuff designed before they figure out how it's going to look. That's why most supercars tend to look alike. The Veyron was designed and some arbitrary HP number was thrown out along with a top speed then they told Bugatti to figure out how to make it go as fast as they said it would. So it was designed for looks rather than function dictating form.|||All chad answered is correct, but it is also due to the physical amount of equipment required within the car that dictates its ungainly profile. Cooling being a massive issue, it has 10 radiators for various cooling processes. The very act of passing air through or over these is going to cause drag. The pure sise of the car doesn't help either as the calculation takes into account the frontal area.


It has a drag coeffeint of 0.36 [10], and a frontal area of 2.07m [11]. This gives it a CdA ft虏 value of 8.02.|||The question about being poorly designed in the drag field, with respect, Audi and other manufacturers got all excited about low drag coefficient in the 1980s.In the 1930s and 1940s you can see ridiculous examples of cars that were made "streamlined" What you have to recognise is that cars, unlike a plane flying through the air, or a boat gliding through the water, need to actually "stick" to the ground. I will predict that manufacturers will move away from this kind of technology.Yes, the "brick" like cars of the 60s will not come back, but certainly less attention to streamlining and low coefficients, has made way for much better and more fuel efficient engines. The next step must be to improve transmission and drive trains so as to make energy savings. When you think about the systems being employed, there has been very little radical change since the automotive industry began.|||When you've got a 1000hp to play with drag coefficient shouldn't be a huge worry!


That car can just 'barge' its way through the air!


Joking apart it's probably more to do with the amount of cooling intakes it has to keep that engine/gearbox cool!


Dont forget it's a big car weighing nearly 2 tonnes!