Features
Men of the year
The Fixer
Thomas Bscher, from banks to Bugatti
The story goes that when Bugatti boss Thomas Bscher was racing one McLaren F1 at the weekend and commuting in another during the week,
he would confuse the two.
McLaren engineers, making regular check-ups on their customer's cars via telemetry, noted that on a daily basis, Bscher's car was closing on Vmax. A faulty read-out they assumed.
Absolutely not, Bscher reassured them, his autobahn had a bend he liked to take at 200mph to wake himself up, the way some folks drink espressos.
An investment banker, Bscher was tasked with saving the Bugatti when it seemed the best it could offer was a series of €1 million prototypes. Two years and 600 resolved 'major packaging clashes' later it's a real car. And an amazing one.
'The visionary attention of Dr Diamandis could turn to nothing less maniacal than rocket racing'
The Dreamer
Peter H. Diamandis, taking racing to the skies
What next for the man behind last year's $10 million X-Prize space race? The visionary attention of Dr Diamandis could turn to nothing less maniacal than rocket racing.
Unveiled in October, the Rocket Racing League will see his socalled 'X-Racers' piloted through a Grand Prix series on 3D tracks 5,000ft above the ground.
The first events are scheduled for 2006, and spectators at a variety of venues across the US will be able to watch the pilot's progress via hand-held GPS systems.
The noble motive is speeding up development in airframe design and jet propulsion, so although the first batch of X-Racers are stock, the idea is they'll gradually be joined by pioneering new private designs.
Groundbreaking technology accelerator or thinly veiled excuse for million-dollar mayhem? We don't care.
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