bugatti veyron

   Bugatti veyron

 The Bugatti Veyron's birth was not an easy one, that it came to be because one day Volkswagen tsar Ferdinand Piech had a dream: to provide the world with a car that had 1000bhp, cost one million euros and could do over 400km/h (250mph). To begin with the brief seemed impossible but in Piech’s mind, not something that couldn’t happen.  

By 1999 there was a styling proposal and even an engine of sorts, initially with 18 cylinders. By 2000 the styling was clearer and the powerplant had been reduced to 16 cylinders, effectively two 4.0-litre VW V8s. A year later VW announced it was indeed going to build the Veyron and that it would have 1001PS (987bhp) and do over 400km/h. Then the real trouble started.                       

The engineers knew that to announce a car with such huge power and speed claims was one thing, but that to make it was entirely another. For a year and a half they tried, and for a year and a half they failed, until eventually Bugatti’s boss, Dr Neuman, was ‘removed.’     

Then a new leadership team was brought in in late 2003, Dr Wolfgang Schreiber arriving as the new chief engineer. Having previously been in charge of transmissions at VW/Audi he was the bloke responsible for the original DSG gearboxes.

A few months after that Thomas Bscher, merchant banker, Le Mans race driver and well-known financial trouble-shooter, was appointed as president, having been head-hunted personally by then VW boss Bernd Pischetsrieder.

Then years later and having changed or re-engineered an incredible 95 per cent of the components, the Veyron became reality. And all of Dr Piech’s original dynamic targets had been hit.

design

The Veyron is a car of engineering beauty, not the visual work of Monet. So it’s no disservice to bluntly describe the Veyron as a weird, insect-like machine with four huge tyres, an absurd number of scoops and winglets along the flanks and across the roof, featuring a distinctive white-and-red badge on the nose that reads ‘Bugatti.’    

On the tail are written the letters E and B. On top of the engine, which has no cover and is exposed directly to the air for cooling purposes, are the numbers 16 and four; 16 cylinders, four turbochargers. Which, in case you were wondering, equates to 987bhp and 922lb ft in standard form. It’s numbers like those produced by its 8.0-litre W16 engine (the W configuration suggesting, in effect, two 4.0-litre V8s attached to a common crank) in where the Veyron’s real beauty lies.

Launching a different version of a Veyron is not merely a case of increasing the power or taking the roof off. The world’s fastest version of the world’s fastest car, the Super Sport, for example, is virtually a brand new car in its own right, with everything on it that moves either redesigned or re-engineered over the ‘standard’ 16.4 version.

Asides from more power and torque (up to 1183bhp and 922lb ft), there are extra cooling ducts beneath the headlights and by its huge NACA ducts on the roof. The A-pillars are narrower than on the original Veyron and allow much better visibility from behind the wheel – something that’s needed when you’re going more than 250mph.

The open-top Grand Sport and Grand Sport Vitesse models do without fixed roofs, instead getting a transparent polycarbonate units that weigh 19kg and can be lifted on and off after pushing two release buttons, but cannot be stowed in the car. As a result, Bugatti has incorporated an emergency carbonfibre soft top that can be stowed in the boot and used at speeds of up to 99mph if it rains.

Interior

When you climb aboard the Bugatti Veyron there are no particular physical contortions required of you by the world’s fastest car, as there are in so many so-called supercars. 

              

You pull on the beautifully crafted aluminium doorhandle, open the door wide and, once you’ve negotiated the highish, thickish sill, insert yourself easily into the seat, crafted from carbonfibre and covered in thick leather.

This is the most exquisite car cabin on earth, no question, even though the driving position seems intimidatingly low at first and the standard car's A-pillars are so thick there are big blind spots. 

First thing you notice is the beautiful centre console, which is made from a single piece of aluminium and is rumoured to cost around £17,000 all on its own. The drop-top Grand Sport Vitesse is fitted with an even more elaborate unit, constructed from carbonfibre and titanium, doubtless costing several times as much.

The Vitesse also features a windscreen-mounted spoiler to ensure the driver and passenger emerge as immaculately coiffured as they were when setting off.

From behind the wheel the instruments look small and surprisingly fussy, especially the speedometer, yet the overall look is sensational.

The reversing camera display is located within the rear-view mirror, an increasingly common place to put it, but more usually found on family hatches.

Luggage space in the tiny nose-mounted boot is tight, to say the least, but space inside the cabin is more than generous for a two-seat, mid-engined car. There is little point in listing what equipment the car has; whatever you as an owner want, you can have, basically. Except for rear seats.

Performance

The Bugatti Veyron boasts a quite extraordinary set of performance figures. After just 2.46sec its reaches 60mph, and barely a couple of seconds after that it bursts into three figures.

But the thing you’ll really struggle to get your head round, the statistic you’ll be boring your mates with for some years to come, is this. If a Veyron set off from a standing start 10 seconds after a McLaren F1 – in which time the F1 will already be travelling at 130mph - the Bugatti reaches 200mph at exactly the same time as the F1. Think about that

This sledgehammer delivery is accompanied virtually no wheelspin whatsoever: the Veyron is four-wheel drive. What there is is noise – a peculiar kind of signature that sounds a bit like two TVR Griffiths on full reheat plus an industrial-strength air hose, all at once. And to accompany this cacophony there is mind-bending, heart-stopping acceleration the like of which has never been felt before in a road car           

Roof off in the Grand Sport, you do get to enjoy the engine note even more, and as a result you feel connected to the car in a way that never happens in the coupe. It soars from 0-62mph in 2.7sec and on to a top speed of 253mph when the roof is in place. Take the roof off, and that top speed reduces to ‘just’ 223mph. Needless to say, it is sensational either way. Although if that's still not enough, the Grand Sport Vitesse adds another 2mph to the v-max and cuts the 0-62 by 0.1sec, making it that fastest convertible in the world.        

The Veyron Super Sport, put simply, is no less than the fastest car we’ve tested. By a very long way indeed. At a stroke, it broke every single speed record we’ve ever kept. Indeed, it’s the first and only car that we’ve measured up to 220mph, a speed it reaches in just a whisker over 30 seconds.