All I want for Christmas

VW has created a new "Super Car" that is extremely fast and extremely expensive.
I'll let the story speak for itself.

Our long national need for a car with more than 1,000 horsepower and costing more than $1 million has finally been answered.

If a Volkswagen Bugatti Veyron in your driveway with a bright red bow around it this Christmas, it's because the 16-cylinder monster doesn't go on sale until after its debut at the L.A. auto show next month.

The Veyron has a seven-speed transmission and will go 0 to more than 60 mph in 2.5 seconds and 0 to 188 mph in 14 seconds and has a top speed of 253 mph, meaning you don't want to be putting that bad boy in the wrong gear and stepping on the wrong pedal at the mall.

The car runs on special tires because it chews up regular tires, and if it breaks down, VW will bring someone over from Europe to do the repairs because ol' Ed down at the Gas 'n' Go probably isn't up to it.

If you get in on the ground floor, there's a certain amount of exclusivity because VW, when its assembly line gets fully rocking, will make about 300 a year and in the United States they will be sold at only half a dozen dealerships.

The Veyron has scoops and spoilers and swooping lines and looks — and this is meant as a compliment — like the fantasy of every 15-year-old, would-be car designer sketching intently away during history class.

The car has not met with universal acclaim. ``It's a complete waste of time and money,'' one German auto industry analyst told The Wall Street Journal.

And Volkswagen believes that Veyron owners won't drive the cars much at all, that they will treat them as works of art. If the Veyron flops, it indeed may become a rare, almost one-of-a-kind car for which wealthy collectors might vie for. But having a car just sit there, even if it's in a secure, climate-controlled garage, doesn't seem terribly different, other than kind and degree, from putting your '78 Ford LTD station wagon up on blocks in the back yard.

So why did Volkswagen, founded in the 1930s to produce inexpensive cars for working-class Germans, wind up building the world's fastest, most powerful, most expensive car? Because VW's then-CEO, Ferdinand Piech, scion of a famous auto-making family, wanted to, that's why.

The Journal says he has a Veyron on order for his wife. Surely your spouse will want to do likewise. Act fast; 45 have already been spoken for.


I'll take two.