The Bugatti Veyron is the world’s most expensive production car and the most exclusive thing on four wheels. But with a top speed of "just" 253 mph, it’s not quite the fastest car on Earth. The Shelby Supercars Ultimate Aero snatched that title from the Veyron a year ago. It appears Bugatti wants it back and figures boosting the Veyron’s power by 349 horsepower ought to do the trick.
The gearheads at German car blog 925 got their hands on a juicy Bugatti memo that purportedly spells out the specs of a new super car. It’s called the Veyron GT. It’s got a mind-blowing 1,350 horsepower. And it could be here in March.
Then again, it might be a rumor. Bugatti isn’t saying anything about it — we asked, and the company flak was pretty snarky in saying, "We don’t comment on every rumor wandering around in the internet." Either way, the guys at SSC have one thing to say to Bugatti if the memo’s legit:
Bring it on.
We know what you’re thinking, because we thought the same thing — how many variants is Bugatti gonna milk out of the Veyron before reaching the self-imposed limit of 300 cars? First there was the Pur Sang, which means pure blood. Then the fashionistas at Hermes brought us a tarted-up model. And then the Veyron went topless at Pebble Beach. Each deviation allowed Bugatti to up the ante on exclusivity and, of course, price. The Pur Sang edition, for instance, demanded hundreds of thousands more for what was essentially aesthetic modifications. That didn’t keep the limited run of five — yes, five — cars from selling out in 24 hours. To date, 240 deep-pocketed people have ordered a Veyron.
And now there’s the Veyron GT. Maybe. According to a "leaked memo" 925 says an internal source at Bugatti handed them, the GT absolutely, positively will be the last variant before the Veyron jersey is hung from the rafters. The alleged memo, which reads to us a lot like a press release and leaves us a bit skeptical as to its origin, spells out what makes the GT different from the 1,001-horsepower Veyron. Unlike the previous limited-edition variants, the GT gets 35 percent more power and enough top-end power to push terminal velocity up 4 percent to 264 mph.
Should the Veyron GT pan out, 1,350 horsepower and 264 mph would, at first blush, look like more than enough to once again make the Veyron the world’s fastest production car. It held that title until the guys at SSC took their 1,183-horsepower twin-turbo Ultimate Aero to a long stretch of road in Washington and blew the doors off the Veyron with a top speed of 257.41 mph. They aren’t worried about losing the title to a new super Bugatti should one materialize. The way they see it, the Ultimate Aero was just getting warmed up.
"When the Ultimate Aero broke the top speed record, it wasn’t maxed out — we simply ran out of road", says marketing chief Junus Khan. "There is still more on the table and we are prepared to defend the record. We are also eager to go head to head with anyone in an ideal location like a proving ground."
Like, say, the sprawling trackat Ehra Lessien that Bugatti’s parent, Volkswagen, uses. The main straight is 5.59 miles long. SSC figures that’s long enough to see what the Ultimate Aero can do against anything Bugatti’s got to offer.
Photo by Bugatti
Top Gear drives the Veyron:
And our own Stuart Schwartzapfel drives the Ultimate Aero:
