I saw this on Top Gear last week: a Bugatti Veyron.   It blows all the other supercars out of the water.  It is the fastest, most powerful street legal car on the market, and it can leave a formula 1 car in its dust.

It has a 8 litre, 16 cylinder engine in a W arrangement (like two V8s merged together) that puts out 1001 horsepower.  It has 4 turbochargers, 64 cylinders with electronic continuously variable cam timing, and has something like 10 separate radiators to deal with all the heat.

All this gives it a top speed of over 400 kilometres an hour.

With that kind of speed, the biggest problem is keeping it on the ground.   (The takeoff speed of a 747 is only 250km/h).  It has a hydraulic rear spoiler to help keep it down, and one of the radiators is solely for cooling the hydraulic fluid of the spoiler.  The side mirrors too help generate downforce to keep the car on the road.

At top speed, it uses 5 litres of fuel per minute, and it’s fuel tank is big enough that it can go for about 12 minutes at top speed.   If you can afford the $2.3 million to buy it though, the fuel consumption is probably not a concern.

You can check out its specs at wikipedia or let Jeremy Clarkson explain why this car is the 8th wonder of the world.

I needed to get a new seatbelt for my car - the old one was starting to fray a little bit in one spot.  I usually get my car serviced at an AA service centre, but they aren’t really a proper workshop, and carry hardly any parts, much less seatbelts.   So, I turned to the yellow pages.  I mean www.yellowpages.co.nz, of course.   There were 14 listings under Safety Belt in Auckland City, and two of those had web pages.

The first company, AutoLiv, has a heading that says ‘Need to replace your seatbelt?’, so I knew I was in the right place.  It had a couple of helpful tips and a phone number for me to call.  The woman who answered the phone was very pleasant and helpful, and asked lots of questions about my car and finally gave me a quote for around $280 including installation.

The second company, Premier Service Centre, had no mention of seatbelts on the front page, and the only mention of seatbelts anywhere was on the page about vehicle compliance checks for new imports.  I didn’t call them.

Some of the other businesses in the list I didn’t call were:

• "Business Ventures" - doesn’t sound like seatbelts to me
• "The Safety Belt Co" - no physical address given
• "Auckland Seatbelts Mobile Service" - only a cellphone number.  I dislike calling people who are in the middle of a job

One of the others sounded promising, so I phoned them, but they guy who answered the phone was extremely abrupt.  He didn’t even seem to care about the make or model of car I had or what kind of seatbelt I wanted, but he quoted me $190 including installation.  Although he quoted $90 less than Autoliv, I was seriously tempted to go with them instead, just because of the difference in service. 

Still, $90 is a lot of money, so I decided to try one more place.  I called Auto Belts in Penrose.  The woman who answered was extremely pleasant and helpful, but said she couldn’t give me a firm price because my car has airbags, and these are sometimes linked to the seatbelt mechanism (which would make it more expensive to replace).  She gave me a mobile number to call for the guy who would actually do the work.  I considered not calling the guy because as I said above, I usually don’t like calling tradespeople on cellphones, but I decided to do it.  The guy was just a pleasant as the woman, and quoted me $180, and we arranged to get it done that afternoon.

When I got there, everyone was pleasant and friendly.  Everyone else I saw in the workshop smiled at me and said hello.  I don’t know what these people have done to create such a fantastic culture there, but it really does make a difference.  I’ve certaintly never encountered another workshop like it.  It was friendly, fast and efficient. 

I was so impressed with them that I want to go back there anytime I need anything done on my car.  And I highly recommend them if anyone in Auckland needs a new seatbelt.  The total user experience really does make the difference.