Obscure supercars come and go, each proclaiming to be faster than the Bugatti Veyron. Five years after driving the original Veyron, it's time to try this final evolution of the species, the Super Sport, a car that should secure Bugatti the ‘World’s Fastest’ title for some time.
How has a standard Bugatti Veyron become a Bugatti Veyron Super Sport?
By gaining an additional 196bhp and 184lb ft, thanks to bigger intercoolers and four enlarged turbochargers. The 0-62mph time doesn’t improve (it’s still a stunning 2.5 seconds) but the 0-125mph times drops (7.3sec to 6.7), as does that all important 0-186mph sprint (16.7 seconds down to 14.6), and the top speed climbs to 268mph. Or at least it would if Bugatti hadn’t limited the Super Sport’s top whack to 259mph for the sake of the tyres – the standard Veyron is limited to 254mph.
There are other changes, too. The redesigned nose features bigger brake cooling ducts, a differnt bumper for more downforce and more powerful LED headlamps. The rear wing rises earlier – at 112mph instead of 137mph – and it drops again at 75mph. Also new are more progressive spring and damper rates, thicker diameter anti-roll bars, and a ground clearance that has been reduced to 80/95mm front and rear in handling mode.
Yes, it’s more, more, more, but there’s also less, 50kg less to be precise, mostly accounted for by the new lightweight wheels. Other calorie-savers are a thin-wall free-flow exhaust, a stiffer monocoque and a lower-drag roof with integrated ram-air NACA ducts rather than alloy air intakes. That’s a lot of changes for such a small batch of cars – just 30 Super Sport-spec Veyrons will ever be built.
Is this new Veyron Super Sport more fun to drive?
I meet the Veyron somewhere between Jerez and Seville. The keyhole next to the driver’s seat is empty, indicating that the 233-to-268mph ultra-high-speed window remains closed, but Bugatti chief test driver and 268mph-record holder Pierre-Henri Raphanel (PHR) is co-pilot and navigator for our journey.
Time to put launch control to the test on a sealed-off stretch of road. Left hoof on the brake, right foot at 6000rpm, and then presto, we’re scorching down the road, the Veyron smoking its tyres in first and again in second. Only the subconscious registers the whiplash upshifts, but the body’s G-force meter is at all times fully aware of the 1106lb ft torque battle between the front Haldex clutch and the mechanical rear differential.
The engine needs to be revved hard to unleash the additional horses, but the benefits of the more compliant front suspension are obvious: gone for good are the nervous high-velocity tremble, the discomforting pitch triggered all too easily by transverse irritations and the harshness when encountering potholes or bumps.
Although the speedo is fast counting up to 186mph, Pierre-Henri keeps smiling his roguish been-there-done-that smile. This car is like a drug, and PHR knows it. I drop the anchors and watch the shiny rear wing increase its angle from 27 to 55 degrees, causing an involuntary downward nod of appreciation as the Veyron sheds speed.
So it sprints like a champion, but can it dance?
The Super Sport is more than merely a quarter-mile king. During our four-hour drive, I pushed the brakes past the ABS threshold corner for corner, accelerating into the ESP software barrier exit for exit, manually extending the mighty wing to load up the rear suspension with an extra 200 kilos of downforce over those blind sickbag crests, mixing the dual-clutch gearbox’s Manual and Sport modes to trigger spine-snappingly sudden upshifts and yield an afterburner effect at the top end of the rev ladder that combs your hair backwards, shapes your eyes into olives and flattens your nose. PHR stopped talking for a while, but his complexion remained rosy, and he walked away in a straight line from the car park to the coffee house at the end of our drive.
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