That’s perhaps disappointing if you want to brag to your pedantic gazillionaire pals that your car’s packing over 1000bhp. Until you realise that 1001hp is a minimum figure, set in the worst conditions. To be sure it never produces less than its claimed output, Bugatti quietly suggesting the mighty 8.0-litre, 16-cylinder engine actually develops around 1050hp, or 1035bhp to you and me. And that’s plenty. It’s enough to make this carbon-fibre machine produce some scarcely believable figures. On the way to that headline 253mph top speed it’ll reach 62mph in just 2.5 seconds, 124mph in 7.3 seconds and 186mph in 16.7 seconds.
To put those figures into perspective, the last really fast car I drove was Ferrari’s 599 GTB Fiorano. Hardly a slouch, the 599 reaches 62mph in 3.7 seconds and 124mph in 11 seconds. But drive the Ferrari 599 past a stationary Veyron at 62mph during its 11 second 124mph sprint and the Bugatti will catch up by the time the Italian reaches 124mph. From a standing start. That’s performance that’s difficult to comprehend, and I’ve just had my first taste of it. I’m not in the driving seat yet, Bugatti’s ‘Pilote officiel’ Pierre-Henri Raphanel taking the wheel to familiarise me with it prior to swapping seats for a while.
Mind-blowing
He pins the accelerator on the first straight stretch of road outside the Molsheim plant. The effect is absolutely extraordinary. I’ve never felt acceleration like it. It literally takes a second or two for my brain to comprehend what’s going on. The trees lining the typical French country road blur into a solid tunnel of foliage, the Veyron pulling me into my seat with the sort of violence a parachutist feels when pulling the rip-cord. Any attempt at remaining calm is lost when the Veyron does its party trick. I’m left both giggling like a schoolboy and swearing like a trooper, the expletives unconsciously yelled out in utter amazement.
To put those figures into perspective, the last really fast car I drove was Ferrari’s 599 GTB Fiorano. Hardly a slouch, the 599 reaches 62mph in 3.7 seconds and 124mph in 11 seconds. But drive the Ferrari 599 past a stationary Veyron at 62mph during its 11 second 124mph sprint and the Bugatti will catch up by the time the Italian reaches 124mph. From a standing start. That’s performance that’s difficult to comprehend, and I’ve just had my first taste of it. I’m not in the driving seat yet, Bugatti’s ‘Pilote officiel’ Pierre-Henri Raphanel taking the wheel to familiarise me with it prior to swapping seats for a while.
Mind-blowing
He pins the accelerator on the first straight stretch of road outside the Molsheim plant. The effect is absolutely extraordinary. I’ve never felt acceleration like it. It literally takes a second or two for my brain to comprehend what’s going on. The trees lining the typical French country road blur into a solid tunnel of foliage, the Veyron pulling me into my seat with the sort of violence a parachutist feels when pulling the rip-cord. Any attempt at remaining calm is lost when the Veyron does its party trick. I’m left both giggling like a schoolboy and swearing like a trooper, the expletives unconsciously yelled out in utter amazement.
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