Bugatti Super Sport Speed Test - Top Gear - BBC

The setting for this doomsday race is Volkswagen's top-secret

test

track at Air Alessi, a massive complex built in a former Cold War no-fly zone, near the former border with East Germany, in the background. is this 13 mile oval shaped track that includes this 5.5 mile Arrow, straight, straight, it's one of the few places on earth where you can really max out a

bugatti

veyron,

bugatti

buffets left nothing to chance , we even had to wait until midday, when the air was at its thinnest before arriving. They finally gave me the go-ahead to run. There is one small thing that made me feel a little apprehensive.

I said how long do tires last at 258 miles per hour and they said, Well, we know how long they last at 248 miles per hour. It's 37 miles. Yes, but what about 258 miles per hour? Well, what they actually told me was to ask an admiral how deep his submarines can really go. He doesn't know until they try it. When I ventured onto the track, I was very glad they weren't. They're not ordinary tires, but they cost twenty thousand pounds a set. I'm nervous about those extra five miles per hour that take me beyond the known limits of the car's performance.

I'm hanging my butt over the jagged edge like Chuck Jaeger. Anyway, focus. The

speed

ometer reads kilometers very accurately, so the magic number we would be looking for is 414 kilometers per hour. I reach maximum

speed

. I will drink fuel at a rate of 1.7 gallons per minute. The radiators will draw in four tons of air per hour. Before the five and a half mile straight line there is a steep bank that I would have to enter at exactly 125 miles per hour and then I have to downshift past a series of bollards ready to go all out when I come off the straight. the other end here we go here's the bench here comes the first bollard shift down a shift down three times good speed captain slow damn look at the speed of that I'm doing 258 200 I'm going faster than I can talk 300 that 320.

Amazing, it's so stable I'm already at 340. Damn nora, it's amazing look how fast everything happens, there's 400. In Queens, English, that's 248 miles per hour, come on, come on, come on, I passed my old record now that We were in the unknown. Come on, yeah, Buzz Chuck, I think I beat you up and the speedometer kept going up 470, damn, that was exciting. No, I'm sorry, are you seriously suggesting that we now open the Guinness Book of World Records next year and it says fas

test

? man on earth, James may not exactly what you mean, not exactly long after I finished my race, Bugatti sent their test driver because they thought you would like to try it and this is what happened, so here it goes, it has to do it. do a run in each direction and take an average, there's my old record, he's already going for a burton, as we can see, the speedometer keeps going up, he's celebrating, I added my congratulations shortly after, damn him, so obviously he did it either way, would you have to do it?

Yeah, and what was his average then 431 kilometers per hour and what's that in the Church of England 267. In a car with windscreen wipers and a CD that's amazing. We should really find out how fast it goes down the track. I want to see that, well, that of course means handing it over to our team's racing driver. Some say the Scots released him too soon and that he spent the entire week pushing an effigy of Reuben's barocello through his desk fan. We know what it's called. the deer and he goes and look how fast that thing comes off the line smoking all four tires okay the first corner just flies there it's almost cartoonishly fast it's just sensational and in the middle of this ferocious speedster he still has a stereo to listen, uh Takes it smoothly around Chicago now taking out the Hammerhead limiter Vertical phantom air brake generating 0.7 of

gear

break just like the real brakes of a Fiesta 50 kilos lighter than the original Veyron but still a heavy car, your Brain honestly can barely comprehend how fast this thing is.

What's really strange is that it hardly makes any noise. Listen to just the two-curve segment for the end. Here we go using all the grip of those 20 big tires. This is the stig in maximum attack and there it is on the other side of the line, so here's the old day. runs at 118.3 we expect this to be a little faster yes but is it fast enough? Look, these are the 117, the gun put the slag and so on, well, this one, the

super

sport

s car, did it in a 16 4.8 faster car. sometime to retrace our footprints