Heavy Metal

Heavy metal ...as in bring your "Brinks Truck" with you to the MB Dealership.

The Sweptail. $13M.

Yeah, gag-worthy in a way till you read its a "one-off" and not a production car (though fully street legal). Some rich cat(ness) had MB build it for them -- maybe thats the gag-worthy part :)

I'd still spin it -- even without a backseat.

Source: $13M Rolls-Royce Sweptail – The Most Expensive Car Ever Build

Rolls-Royce unveiled a one-off custom build called the Sweptail. At a reported price of nearly $13 million, it is believed to be the most expensive new car ever commissioned.

“Sweptail is the automotive equivalent of haute couture,” Giles Taylor, the director of design for Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, said in a statement. “It is a Rolls-Royce designed and hand-tailored to fit a specific customer.”

According to Rolls, a customer approached the company in 2013 and asked it to build a one-of-a-kind motor car inspired by the luxury yachts of the 1920s and ’30s. The Sweptail’s signature feature is a single-piece glass roof that tapers into the car’s fastback rear end. It’s a design feature that dominates the car’s silhouette.

The front grille of the unique motor car is also unique by itself and is the largest fitted to any modern-era Rolls Royce giving it a distinct look. It’s milled from a single piece of aluminum and hand-polished to give it a mirror shine.

On the rear end is the “swept-tail” that gives the car its name. The coup de gras of the rear is the ultimate homage to the world of racing yachts that inspired the client, with its raked stern.

The back seat is replaced with a wood mid-shelf that features an illuminated glass lip. Further back is the wood hat shelf, polished and inset with luggage rails and surrounded by a large teardrop-shaped glass roof that contributes to a very bright, airy cockpit.

On the inside, the cabin is predictably wrapped in opulence. Rolls claims the car’s dash is the cleanest to date, with a clock made from the thinnest Macassar veneer and machined titanium hands.

The center console also houses a mechanism that serves up a bottle of champagne and two crystal champagnes flutes. The Sweptail comes with its own set of luggage.

Rolls-Royce has not released technical specs of the car, but it’s believed to be based on the current-generation Phantom platform, which means some version of the company’s 6.75-liter V-12 is most likely lurking under its long bonnet.
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Well they just put the worlds largest cruise ship in the water (its not fitted out, just floated) a few days ago.

The Symphony of the Seas, 230,000 tons (gross) displacement, or 460 million pounds. A Nimitz Class aircraft carrier is 100,000 tons gross

What is will look like when done and a technical cutaway:

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I am always impressed with the engineering, propulsion, and construction skills of these behemoths. Its breathtaking honestly that we could even do such a thing.

What is don't understand is the appeal of GIANT cruise ships. Just don't get it. No, never done one of these mega-ships and maybe my mind would change .. but they just hold no appeal. I have been on smaller ships and emjoyed the cruise just fine..

Hey gimme back the Pacific Princess (The Love Boat). BUt ya cant. She got scrapped a few years back. at a mere 20,000 tons, 1/10 the size of this ne NCL leviathan, that was plenty big. Link is a 60 photo slide show of her right before they took the torches to her in Turkey in 2014.

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Cruise ship tour: Last look at the original 'Love Boat'
 
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My Godfather, may he rest in piece, was an engineer with Chrysler defense when this tank was being developed. I witnessed the prototype, which was called the XM1 do some pretty amazing things during an open house at the tank plant(those were different times). I think 45 mph is on the conservative side, my understanding was closer to 55 over any terrain while not losing perfect aim on its target.
This is an armor piercing round that I took home as a souvenir from the day. I used to know a lot more about it.
:sFl_america2:

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I did some architectural design work for that switch-over. There was a story/rumor going around of an M1 running over a VW in the parking lot. Driver thought he ran over a parking beam!
 
Anybody know anytthing about this big son of a gun? Convair XC-99. Never heard of it before today .. and I dig planes of this era (late 40's to late 50's)

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USS Gerald R Ford, CVN-78. World's Biggest Aircraft Carrier. 1,100 ft and 100,000 tons, at 35 knots no less, of "we will kick your a** if we have to" that we can park almost anywhere in the world where people require incentives to behave.

Seriously, an engineering and technical marvel. Neat vid here, 17 mins. Lotsa data out there on it tho if this isnt enough for ya.

 
Nice enough. Even if I was in that league 2 many doors.

yeah, i gotcha on the door thing. BUT, this is a bad *** car. bet its be a blast to drive :)

as weve talked about at length in other threads, if these (or similar but priced for the masses unlike this thing) cars got 500 miles per charge, and could charge fully in 10 minutes .. EVERY IC-engined car in the world would have taken a giant step toward obsolescence.

dunno if it can economically be done, but retrofitting certain older cars (2000 MY and later, so probably can NEVER do a C body) might be a decent business in the future .. unless the federales force retirement on IC cars one day?
 
Actually the USS Enterprise, CVN 65 was longer than the Ford. The Enterprise is the longest navel vessel built to date.
RIP, Big E.
It also had no top speed. It is rumored that either the bow would buckel, the propellers would cavitate or come apart, over speeding the turbines would be a possibility.
Basically the reactor/steam generator capacity was waaaay beyond what the steam turbines could use. The conventional fossil fuels boilers that the propulsion system was patterned after would reach a limit of heat transfer, fire to tubes, tubes to water and your pressure and superheater temps would fall off.
A nuke plant does not have a superheater. Steam temp is at latent heat of vaporization temp for the pressure it is operating at. You cannot create steam in a nuclear reactor core ( think Cherynobol). Very high pressure water is pumped through core and gets hot but stays liquid due to high pressure, that water is run through tubes in a tank (steam generator) to make other water into steam for turbines. Opening throttle more and more lowers pressure in steam generator and thus lowers temp of high pressure water in core which promotes fission increasing temp and making more steam, also control rods help with this also.
So with 8 reactors on board each with way more BTU capacity than the boilers they replaced The Big E was a thermodynamic mistake/error and probably why she was the only one in her class.
RIP Big E the most powerful steam ship ever.
 
It did cavitate the props, limiting speed.
My son spent 3 years aboard, much of it in drydock working as roaming security during its last major overhaul and then its next to last deployment in aviation maintenance.
 
Thanks guys. cool posts.

70BBD, i forgot E was a retrofit nuclear ship. Why 8 reactors when they MUST have known about turbine limitations? bounce back if you get a chance -- as you clearly know what you're talkin' about :)

and yes, steam is NOT a good coolant in the core .. my primitive reactor knowledge knows that (plus, a Russian engineer worked for me about 15 years ago ..survived Chernobyl ..but died of cancer in 2012). plus he told me the REST of the Unit 4 story -- didn't make the headlines but damn heroic. Google it if interested - literally millions of people owe their lives to these three men)
 
The Enterprise was not an retrofit. It was intended to be a nuke from day 1.
During its construction it was deemed too expensive to build the other five of its class so they shelved the design and built the Kennedy as a conventionally powered ship. The Kennedy was ordered as a nuke but was changed to an oiler after the keel was laid. Meanwhile they went back to the drawing board and designed the Nimitz class.
 
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