Hypercar Version 2.0

There has never been a production car with a higher output than the Chiron’s mind-blowing 1479bhp. What does it feel like to have that much power under your right foot?

- Richard Meaden

It’s the speedo that gets you. For a moment you can’t quite believe your eyes. Do those numbers really read all the way round to 500kph? The audacity and absurdity of it truly takes your breath away, but then that’s always been VW’s 21st century mission for Bugatti. To create cars that force you to reappraise what you thought was possible. To rewrite the rules.

If I’m honest, I always struggled with the Veyron. It was expressly created to chase big numbers and appeal to ultrahigh-net-worth individuals; people with more money than they know what to do with, buying cars they don’t know what to do with. This said, of course I was excited when I got the chance to drive one. And yes, it was madly powerful, rampantly fast and laughably easy to drive. But it was also a cold character. One that didn’t seduce me or leave a lasting impression, other than at the effort it must have taken to expunge the emotion from what was at the time the world’s fastest production car.

So why am I more excited by the Chiron? Because Bugatti recognised that whatever followed the Veyron had to address those issues. Not the customer profile, or even the obsession with setting blistering new benchmarks. All that stuff goes with the territory. No, what would be addressed was the touchy feely stuff. The shades of grey that are needed to create a truly three-dimensional driving experience. The things that, if done brilliantly, will make the Chiron an event at any speed, and a car you want to thread through corner after corner as badly as you crave a long piece of straight road with no speed limits.