Since I'm apparently vote #1, I'm happy to live in a world were 100% of the Jalops choose the McLaren. Nothing against the Bug.

F1, Son!

Ummm... Mclaren f1... By a lot. If I had a Billion dollars I wouldn't buy a Veyron. Honestly.

This is the kind of "hard" decision I can only dream of having to make. Actually, if you can really afford either one of these, you can probably afford both. I'll take both. The F1 for track days, and the Bugatti for cruising perhaps.

mclaren, that way you can bring 2 friends along for a high speed ride. Plus with your 2 friends you can use the carpool lane on HWY 80 in Berkeley, CA and bypass all those crappy old bio-diesel burning Mercedes driving hippies.

You sit in the middle of the freaking car! That does it for me.

While the F1 has a certain 'fine vintage wine' appeal, I'd rather drive the Bugatti. I like the people riding with me to be able to hear me when I curse at the moron with the cell phone driving 57MPH in the fast lane. Of course, that's just me.

Dude, two chicks at the same time.

as i stated in the JFG mclaren article, i'm going w/ the veyron on this. less generic supercar styling, and the pinnacle of speed. for now.
plus i like the idea of a locomotive engine powering a car.

My top 4 supercars are:

1. Koenigsegg CCX
2. McLaren F1
3. Veyron
4. Zonda

I voted accordingly...

BTW, the car pictured is technically a McLaren F1 LM (or might be the F1 GTR)... not the plain F1 (or longtail F1 GT).

Volkswagen won't even let Top Gear put the Veyron in the hands of The Stig for a test course run. How pathetic is that.

Gotta take the Bug. 250+ mph whilst sitting in leather wrapped, CD blaring air-conditioned comfort.
Betcha can't do that in the Mclaren POS.

@cyclopticgaze:
if only!!

Maybe so @Vandit:, but did you see James May take it to over 250 MPH? The interior shots were incredibly quite and calm.
I would not let The Stig drive my million dollar auto.

If I had one of course.

@Vandit: Yeah, they only let them race it against a fighter plane.

Jerks.

@jonnylieberman: I guess I prefer performance tests that involve the active use of the steering wheel and brake pedal.

The F1 because of the seating position.

The Veyron for everyday driving and the fact that it has 16 cylinders!!

@Vandit: Um, did you see that episode?

Yeah, but at top speed, the F1 gets better gas mileage. Al la better for the environment?

Though, I'd still rather have a Spyker C8. Its all about the bling.

Wasn't really that hard a decision for me. I love the F1, and if given the chance to drive both of these cars for 1 day I'd take the F1.

If I were to buy one with my magical non-existent money? Veyron. Music, air conditioning, sound deadening and much less generic-looking, although both look absolutely bonkers.

Veyron it is.

@cyclopticgaze: But only the type of chicks that'd double up on a dude with supercar...

...oh, wait...

F1, I can go back and fourth on this but at the end of the day, the F1 has a clutch pedal.

Really though, my life would be totally complete with the pair of these and a Defender.

And a GT2. Dammit.

The McLaren is the only supercar in which you can bring your trophy wife AND your mistress. I'd go with the McLaren.

Let's just say I would pull a Beowulf on any dragon trying to defile the sanctity of a McLaren. With the Bugatti, I might just watch.

The F1 doesn't weigh 4000lbs. The choice is easy.

This is the fantasy garage.
I'll have both.

F1 by a long shot. Theres just something awesome about early 90's supercars thats missing in modern ones.

@jakay11: No this isn't. This is the question of the day.

I remember the first time I heard the Veyron run. I was standing in the grass at Meadowbrook Hall with a few old men. When it started we all looked at each other and smiled. I said "I'd kill my whole family for that car." In retrospect, I feel bad for saying that. I love my family and would almost certainly never kill them, least of all for a car. But that's the kind of irrational thought these kinds of cars can illicit. To anyone who says "If I had a billion dollars I'd never buy a car like that" I'd invite you to stand next to one with that kind of money burning a whole in your pocket. When faced with the reality of that situation I bet you'd line up to snort that kind of powder.

I like the looks of the F1 way better. But the seating position seals the deal. I would love a sports car 3 seater like that!

F1. Better looking, far lighter, and with three pedals.

I would rather have a koenigsegg or a zonda than the Bug. For me the Bugatti sits somehwre near the SLR in terms of desireability whcih is not really that high. The Mclaren kinda rules them all though.

I think I'd end up killing myself in a fireball if I owned the McLaren. I'm not a trained racing driver.

I feel comfortable that I could drive the Veyron without killing myself. So assuming I can't have both, I'll take the Veyron.

@Heep: three pedals is what makes my vote.

McLaren F1, because you can kill yourself in it and take twice as many passengers with you!

@CEman: Erm, not 250, maybe, but certainly 230...

The roadgoing non/LM version was a very refined car, with a Kenwood CD system specifically designed for sound-quality and lightness. Certainly, my very brief journey in one, it actually reminded me of a 750il, until he floored it.

And it had air-con, too. Very definitely not a POS as you so eloquently put it.

Incidentally, as you may have guessed, I vote Bugatti. Yes it's awesome in every way, but it bloody well should be. This is what a car should be like if it costs the reputed £5,000,000 per car too build (that figure probably includes program and research costs, but apparrently each car is sold at an insane loss).

The McLaren was built with an ethos, as befits a Gordon Murray brainchild. Weight was saved in every area. Magnesium and titanium alloys were everywhere. The Bugatti needs all its 1000hp because it's so heavy.

It's worth mentioning that, if they really wanted to, McLaren could probably have bunged four turbo's on it and made well into four figure power, but ultimate power wasn't the point.

The McLaren was the living example of lots of separate systems working together in perfect symbiosis to create the most visceral ever supercar experience.

The Bugatti is just another very very flash car, borne of corporate prestige and "chip on shoulder.". It will always be amazing, but it isn't clever like the F1.

Having said that.... I now want a Phaeton with a Veyron engine.

I like the looks & concept of the Veyron better, but to drive? F1 by a mile.

Plus, I know its a fantasy and I'd have an army of mechanics to keep things up to snuff, but good lord, there's a lot of complexity to the Bug. The F1 keeps it simple(r), stupid.

i voted veyron. every review i hear of this car is that it is a "concorde moment" in automotive engineering. james may took it up to 250 whatever mph and said it felt completely stable and solid and amazing. apart from that i think the looks are a departure somewhat from sports cars. not to slight the mclaren, it is totally badass and i voted yes on it yesterday, i just think the veyron is something extra.

@Rust-MyEnemy: SHIT! I MEANT I VOTE F1:- EDIT BUTTON TWAT AVOIDANCE METHOD PLEASE!

I just like the idea of a center driving position...

F1- all day everyday, and twice on Sunday

I like the Veyron, but it scares me.

BTW Jonny, you misspelled Veyron in thee questyon.

It is much like the argument you hear in all the martial arts movies:
"Your Karate (Veyron) is no match for my Kung-Fu (McLaren F1)."

Who actually wins? In the case of Kung-Fu movies, the hero (the good guy) always wins, with a pretty straight-forward plot.

McLaren wins this match in my book because it looks cooler and is closer to the philosophy of Colin Chapman (even though by no means is the McLaren a light car). And the fact that you can have two babes riding both sides of you is a plus...

Maybe if I was looking for comfort, ultimate speed, and the latest gadget/technology, I would choose the Veyron, but I will stick with my old-school Kung-Fu movies.

The F1, it's better looking, you sit in the center, and while the Vag-Ron will out perform it, it still drives like a pcp addled skinless cheetah. This is the life of an F1 owner:
[i120.photobucket.com]
nsfw

@Dr.Danger: jonny@jalopnik.com

Ok, my final comment on this. I remember seeing the F1 moving for the first time. It looked exactly like the perfect car. But, after everything I'd read and heard, seeing it drive around with all four tires on the ground was very nearly disappointing. I don't know what more I was expecting, but I do know that for me the car had become more than a car, it was something like a myth, maybe a religion. Something so perfect that it couldn't possibly exist to be touched and trodden upon like other real objects.

Too much coffee today. Not enough food.

I'm going be in the minority here and say Bugatti, but in reality the answer kind of depends. If I needed a car that I would be driving every day, I'd want a car that was able to cruise well at freeway speeds without much loss of comfort -- that's why I chose the Bugatti. According to James May, even at 250mph the car still felt stable and really easy to drive.

Now, if I already had a daily driver and just needed a "toy", F1 all the way. While the Bugatti might accelerate faster, I really wonder if it would be faster than the F1 around a track. Not to mention, the F1 just embodies a purity of spirit that you don't get with most other cars.

What it comes down to is whether or not the car would be my only car or my second car. Only car? Bugatti hands down. Second car? F1 baby. Preferably the long tail LM version for extra exclusivity and better high speed handling characteristics.

The F1 is custom-built for knee-steering while ski-poling.

No? Just me?