<img src="{att_thumb}ccr1_640.jpg" href="{att_link}ccr1_640.jpg" align="left" class="frame"><a href="http://www.koenigsegg.com">Koenigsegg</a> is a Swedish supercar company that you've probably never heard of. They make the CCR1, the beautiful orange car to the left, which goes from 0-100km in 3.2 seconds and tops out at <iq>395+ km/h (242+ mph)</iq>. It reaches <iq>806 HP at 5900 RPM</iq> for maximum power output. Being European, it doesn't even guzzle gas to the extreme amount you would expect --- about normal for an American car (<iq>13 l/100 km</iq> (about 20MPG highway) --- see <a href="http://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=919">A gallon of gas</a> for info on Euro/US conversion). There are a lot more <a href="http://www.koenigsegg.com/thecars/index.asp?submenu=4">technical details</a> about the car available here. <img src="{att_thumb}bugatti-8.jpg" href="{att_link}/bugatti-8.jpg" class="frame" align="right">Another amazing car is the <a href="http://www.bugatti-cars.de/bugatti/index.html">Bugatti Veyron</a>, which delivers an unbelievable 1001HP! The Bugatti home page is made with Flash and doesn't allow easy linking, but <a href="http://www.howstuffworks.com/bugatti.htm" source="How Stuff Works">How the Bugatti Veyron Works</a> article is most excellent. This car sports a W-16 engine (more on that later) and does <iq>0-100km in 3 seconds</iq> and tops out at <iq>250+ mph (400+ kph)</iq>. It can be yours for about a million bucks. The engine is basically two overlapping V-8 engines <iq>merged ... onto one another, and then let both of them share the same crankshaft</iq> and voila! A 16-cylinder engine! They draw on their F-1 racing experience a lot to get make an engine that uses <iq>1.33 gallons of gasoline per minute</iq> at peak output, but that it is a relatively reasonable size: <iq>710 mm (27 inches) long, 889 mm (35 inches) wide and 730 mm (28.7 inches) high</iq>. They use a super turbocharger to compress inflow to <iq>a maximum turbo boost of 18 PSI to double the output power</iq> and reduce engine size <iq>to a more manageable 8 liters</iq>. You should really check out the Bugatti site's video section to see how the engine was put together and to see the <iq>intricate internal oil path to ensure proper lubrication and cooling</iq>. It's really well done. This car rounds out with <iq>full-time all-wheel drive</iq> (of course, you wouldn't be able to control the damned thing any other way) and seven gears. For a million bucks, you also get a fine-looking all-leather interior --- hell maybe they even throw in a year's supply of Turtle Wax products for free. <img src="{att_thumb}rx8_images_46.jpg" href="{att_link}rx8_images_46.jpg" align="left" class="frame">The final car rounding out this review is the new Mazda RX-8. The Mazda site is also chock-full-o-Flash and doesn't allow linking, but I'll do my best. It's a lot more affordable at about <iq>$30,000</iq> and doesn't really qualify for super-car status. It's a sports car, but unique in two ways: it's a 4-passenger sports car and it has a rotary engine. They can fit in four passengers because the engine is smaller and more efficient. The rotary engine was actually invented at the beginning of the 20th century by <iq>Dr. Felix Wankel</iq>. Again, <a href="http://travel.howstuffworks.com/rotary-engine.htm" source="How Stuff Works">How Rotary Engines Work</a> comes to the rescue with a wealth of information. It was decades before manufacturing techniques were advanced enough to mass-produce this type of engine reliably, and Mazda has been involved with them for decades. The latest incarnation, called Renesis, is a <iq>two-rotor engine [that] produce[s] about 250 horsepower</iq>. Though a rotary engine still has a <iq>four-stroke combustion cycle</iq> (intake, compression, combustion, exhaust), it doesn't have any cylinders at all, avoiding loss of efficiency when converting from longitudinal to rotational power. <img src="{att_thumb}rx8_images_71.jpg" href="{att_link}rx8_images_71.jpg" align="right" class="frame"><a href="http://travel.howstuffworks.com/rotary-engine8.htm" title="How Rotary Engines Work: Producing Power">The Four Strokes</a> has a great Flash animation showing how the engine works. The picture to the right is from the Mazda website and shows the inside of the RX-8 engine. As the rotor circles the central shaft, the three chambers created where its points touch the engine walls change size. As the chamber grows, it passes an intake; the reduced pressure sucks air into the chamber. As it continues, the chamber shrinks, remaining sealed on both sides against the engine wall, compressing the air. At maximum compression, the chamber encounters two spark plugs, which fire in rapid succession to push the rotor onwards. Finally, it passes the exhaust port and, compressing again, forces the exhaust out, ready to continue past the intake again. <bq>The rotary engine has far fewer moving parts than a comparable four-stroke piston engine. A two-rotor rotary engine has three main moving parts: the two rotors and the output shaft. Even the simplest four-cylinder piston engine has at least 40 moving parts, including pistons, connecting rods, camshaft, valves, valve springs, rockers, timing belt, timing gears and crankshaft.</bq> Because of this and other factors, a rotor engine is much more efficient and quiter than a cylinder engine, but more difficult to manufacture. Mazda's site has a history of their development, detailing problems with sealing against the chamber walls and heavy damage due to rotor chatter. Those problems are behind them and the current Renesis runs hundreds of thousands of miles without any chatter marks at all. So it's no $1Million 1001HP supercar Bugatti supercar or a Swedish exotic no one's ever heard of, but, at $30,000, you might actually be allowed to test-drive one if you ask nicely. Good luck!