VOLKSWAGEN--BUGATTI

The fastest and most expensive production car ever

When you're ripping along at 253 mph, your mind is not drifting aimlessly. Your senses are cranked up to full volume to detect any hint of impending catastrophe in the maelstrom of wind rush, tire thrum, mechanical thrash, and exhaust roar that surrounds you.

Is that slight shift in the whistling wind caused by a body panel coming loose? Does that vague vibration signal a tire starting to delaminate? Does that subtle new mechanical whine presage a failing bearing that's about to lock up the powertrain?

No such problem developed on the Bugatti Veyron 16.4, because it is not a half-baked aftermarket or boutique road burner. It is a production car developed and tested to the standards of Volkswagen, Bugatti's parent company. With a top speed of 253 mph, it is also the fastest production car ever built.

Production, of course, is a relative term. In the case of the Veyron, Bugatti plans to build only about 50 cars a year at a price of 1 million, which is about $1,250,000 as this is written. To this rarefied market Bugatti has brought an unusual level of sophistication and engineering necessitated by the promise of 1001 metric horsepower (or 987 American horses) and a top speed of 252 mph, a pledge from former VW boss Ferdinand Piëch when he unveiled the production-intent Veyron at the 2001 Geneva auto show.

Achieving 1000 horsepower in a racing engine is one thing, but to do so in a reliable, refined, durable, and emissions-legal configuration is much harder. The energizer in the Veyron is a WR16 displacing 7998cc and turbocharged with 15.8 psi of boost. You can think of it as two Passat WR8 engines put together and pumped up by four turbos.

But the Bugatti engine has more cylinders, more displacement, more power per liter, and more output overall than any other engine in the WR family tree. When I ask Bugatti development boss Wolfgang Schreiber to explain how the same engine can be rated at 1001 SAE net horsepower at 6000 rpm for the U.S. but only 987 horsepower (1001 PS) for Europe, he laughs, saying, "The production engines are all putting out between 1020 and 1040 PS, enough to cover both promises."

The engine's torque peak is equally mighty at 922 pound-feet, developed between 2200 and 5500 rpm. The four small turbos minimize throttle lag, and the 9.3:1 compression ratio ensures reasonable torque even before boost develops.

All that twist required a dedicated transmission. The Veyron gets a King Kong seven-speed version of VW's twin-clutch gearbox, called DSG. Like the DSG available in the Audi TT, it operates with an automatic mode or a full manual mode via paddle shifters. Because gearchanges occur with one clutch disengaging as the other engages, shifts are uniformly smooth and swift.

With about as much engine output as two Corvette Z06 V-8s, it's no surprise that Bugatti engineers decided to go with all-wheel drive. We don't have many details about the driveline, but the front-to-rear torque split is automatically adjusted to suit dynamic conditions and can range from 100 to 0 percent at either end.

An engine, particularly a turbocharged one, that develops four-digit power throws off more heat than a dozen pizza ovens. Consequently, in the nose of the Veyron are three coolant radiators, one heat exchanger for the twin air-to-liquid intercoolers, and two air-conditioning condensers. There are also transmission and differential oil coolers on the right side and a large engine-oil cooler in the left-side air intake. To help heat escape from the engine compartment, the big WR16 sits in the open, enclosed by no cover of any kind. This powertrain propels the 4300-pound Veyron as effortlessly and gracefully as Tiger Woods belts a 300-yard drive.

My experience with the car took place at Ehra-Lessien in Germany, Volkswagen's test track and high-speed theme park not far from VW headquarters in Wolfsburg. At least it will soon become a theme park because Bugatti plans to let Veyron owners bring their cars to this 13.0-mile circuit to explore the top speed of their cars. In addition to finding out how fast the Veyron can go, I was a guinea pig for this ultimate high-speed thrill ride.

We started with two familiarization laps to get a feel for the track and the car. The track is simple, with a pair of high-banked, 150-mph corners connected by two five-mile-long straights,one of which has a slight bend so that it touches a common parking area.
With the Veyron's high beltline, I couldn't see any of the front bodywork from the driver's seat, but the view of the pavement immediately in front of the car is excellent. The driving position is comfortable, with a snug sport seat that provides great lateral support and manual fore-and-aft and seatback-angle adjustments (a plusher power seat will be optional).

Even after it was lowered to my preferred position, the steering wheel did not obstruct my view of the instrument cluster. And despite the Veyron's low, 47.5-inch height, there was plenty of clearance between my helmeted head and the headliner. Schreiber promises the car will accommodate drivers as tall as six foot seven.

Although the Veyron idles with a quiet murmur, as soon as it starts rolling you hear a symphony of mechanical music that gives way to tire thrum when you get above 100 mph, which doesn't take long. We had no opportunity to perform acceleration testing, but the ease with which the Bugatti blows past that speed is astonishing. We predict about six seconds flat from a dead stop.

What's more, the acceleration doesn't slacken when you hit triple-digit speeds. In my first lap, I took the car up to about 185 mph, at which point the tire noise was fairly loud but the Veyron was otherwise calm and relaxed. One reason it felt so secure is that when you hit 137 mph, the Bugatti hunkers down, lowering its normal ride height of 4.9 inches to 3.1 in front and 3.7 in the rear. At the same time a small spoiler deploys from the rear bodywork and a wing extends about a foot, perched at a six-degree angle. Two underbody flaps ahead of the front tires also open up. This configuration produces substantial downforce, about 330 pounds in front and 440 in the rear at 230 mph.

Given that it only takes about 500 horsepower to overcome the prevailing drag at 185 mph, that leaves the 500 horses remaining for acceleration duty. So when you plant your right foot at 185, the Veyron's surge of power shoves you into the driver's seat about as hard as a Corvette's does at 100 mph, or a Ford Five Hundred's does at 40 mph. Accelerating from 185 to 230 on my next lap didn't take very long, and the car remained glued to the pavement, although wind roar overcame tire thrumming to become the predominant sound.

But 230 mph is about as fast as the Veyron will go until you put the car into top-speed mode. This involves coming to a stop and, while the car is idling, turning a key in a lock on the floor to the left of the driver's seat. When you do that, the car sinks down even lower on its suspension, until ground clearance has been reduced to a mere 2.6 inches in front and 2.8 in the rear. This setup also causes the front underbody flaps to close and the rear spoiler and wing to retract, although the wing remains tilted out of the body at a slight two-degree angle. These changes reduce the car's drag coefficient from 0.41 to 0.36, and they reduce the peak downforce from 770 to 120 pounds.

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