Ever since there have been cars, people have raced them. Likewise, ever since people started racing, automakers have ruthlessly pushed the limits of technology and physics to make the fastest cars in the world faster. Race cars have a long history, but it wasn’t until the 70s and into the 80s, where production cars began to make their older counterparts look slow, as if built for high fuel economy or to cart the kids to school.
In that same period the Ferrari F-40 became the first production car in the world to break the 200 MPH threshold, but that title was quickly lost to competitor Lamborghini when, three years later, in 1990 the Diablo posted a 202 MPH laptime. The title changed hands yet again to Jaguar, but then McLaren Automotive headed by designer Gordon Murray shattered the record with a 231 mile an hour posting in the F1.
Yet, like the heavy weight title of the world, the fastest production car is not something that dedicated race car designers will let stand for long. Everyone wants a run at the title, but not everyone can have it. And the problem with being second best in this arena is that you’re just a foot note. So when Volkswagen CEO Ferdinand Piech, set out to revive the Bugatti name by creating a production car that would top 250and gain the title, the outcome was not certain.
At the start, Bugatti had other difficulties to overcome as well. For instance, the Bugatti Veyron is among the heaviest super cars with a relatively low, by comparison, power to weight ratio. And unlike the F1, the Bugatti was not designed to be as light as possible with as much power as possible. Instead the Veyron was built to be elegant and was subsequently engineered to perform along aesthetic parameters.
As difficult as this task of design-then-engineer was to overcome, in 2005 the Veyron rolled off the line in Molsheim France and did exactly what it was meant to do. In April of that year the Veyron set the fastest production car record at 253 MPH. But Bugatti was not finished. In July 2010, Bugatti revealed its Super Sport model that raced to an obscene speed of 267 MPH.
As fast as this car is, the Super Sport is not just strong in its top end. The model also has the best time to one hundred MPH at 4.5 seconds. And it’s zero to sixty time, while not the quickest, at 2.5 seconds, is a dangerous rate of acceleration that outperforms some super bikes. The Veyron Super Sport is propelled by a rear-engine, 16 cylinder, 1200 horsepower motor. The company has even capped the top speed of buyer’s models at 258 for fear that the tires can’t handle the stress. All of these factors combine to make the greatest super car ever built.
When I was a kid, I hung pictures of Lamborghinis and Ferraris on my walls, but this is a new era, and as befits any new era, there’s a new king in town. Having said that, the king had better step it up because the race to 300 MPH has only just begun.
