The excellent HowStuffWorks.com folks have a bit up about the Bugatti Veyron, a million-dollar supercar to end all supercars. A few fun facts:

• It boasts a W-16 engine that produces 1,001 horsepower.
• It’s good for 250MPH.
• 0 to 60? THREE seconds.
• 14 seconds is a pretty good quarter mile time; in 14 seconds, this car is going 180MPH, and has left the quarter quite a ways back.

It’s good to know that these things exist. The article doesn’t mention a curious fact I know to be true of other Bugattis: they run on aviation fuel, not regular gas. The folks who used to clean my car had one on the lot a couple years ago, and the owner gave us the tour; it was essentially a track toy, but the aviation gas wrinkle meant that when he took it to Dallas, for example, he had to either trailer it or caravan with a truck full of fuel.

That’s the sort of thing that makes my air-cooled German pile of foolishness look practical, I tell you. It may burn oil and require absurd maintenance, but at least I don’t have to go to airports for gas.