0-60 in under three from million dollar Bug

Newswheel staff :: 27 April 2005 :: Filed under Mid / rear engine sportscar, Bugatti, Bugatti Veyron, Europe & UK, US,

[Click on an image to view]

It's going on sale this year - no, really

Is this the most pointless car in the history of the universe or the ultimate one-finger salute to speed limits around the globe? Forgive us for suspecting it will be the former. For starters, buying the essentially-dead Bugatti brand and blowing a pile of cash on a factory in France doesn’t make these VW-financed cars bona fide Bugs. More importantly, isn’t the point of a car like this driving enjoyment? Well, kidney-crushing straight-line grunt aside, we doubt this behemoth will deliver more on-road pleasure than , say, a Boxster S. What we’d love to see from Bugatti is a 1,000kg sports car with the sort of engineering that makes grown men weep. One with a carbon fibre chassis, perhaps an engine in the region of 4-litres (naturally aspirated of course) and knocking out, oh, 500bhp-ish. And subtle, classy styling that underlines the crassness of the current Ferrari range. Fat chance.

Back in the real world, the concept Veyron was first shown in 2000. Soon after, outlandish claims of 250mph / 400kph top speeds and 1,000bhp were being bandied about. Needless to say, Bugatti found it a little tricky to deliver and a litany of design overhauls and missed launch windows followed. At one stage it looked like sense would prevail and the entire project would be canned. Not so. The Veyron and its ludicrous 8-litre, 987bhp W16 engine (the ultimate development of VW’s excellent narrow-angle V6 powerplant) is go. And it’s enough, it would appear, to break the three second barrier to 60mph. That’s truly, madly, ridiculously fast. It’s F1 car pace, in fact. The asking price for what seems sure to be comfortably the quickest road car of all time is a suitably silly $1.3. And just 50 will be made. Which is just as well - the arrival of this sort of car typically presages a major economic meltdown (think Jaguar XJ220 or McLaren F1). Happy days.

Linkage:
Bugatti