Bugatti Veyron

The irony isn’t lost on me when arriving at Bugatti’s Molsheim production facility when the security man at the gate takes my driving license off me for identification. He gives me a Bugatti visitor badge to replace it.A fair trade perhaps, but I doubt whether it’d be much use if I’m pulled over later for speeding. And that’s not entirely unlikely as I’m here to drive the car you voted Car of the Year 2006, the Bugatti Veyron. And it’s capable of a quite ridiculous 253mph. Anybody who knows their cars knows the numbers; 1001hp or if you’re used to good old bhp, 987bhp. That’s perhaps disappointing if you want to brag to your pedantic gazillionaire pals that your car’s packing over 1000bhp. Until you realise that 1001hp is a minimum figure, set in the worst conditions. To be sure it never produces less than its claimed output, Bugatti quietly suggesting the mighty 8.0-litre, 16-cylinder engine actually develops around 1050hp, or 1035bhp to you and me. And that’s plenty. It’s enough to make this carbon-fibre machine produce some scarcely believable figures. On the way to that headline 253mph top speed it’ll reach 62mph in just 2.5 seconds, 124mph in 7.3 seconds and 186mph in 16.7 seconds.