Quickest Way to Spend $2 Million: Buy A Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport
92
points
Author: Matthew Phenix
January 11, 2010
Company:Volkswagen Group;Manufacturer:Bugatti
Highs:Breathtaking speed, handcrafted beauty, utter exclusivity.
Lows:A price to match. And who wants to go 200 miles per hour with the top down?
It's no stretch to suggest that the Bugatti Veyron is the most splendiferous conglomeration of moving parts the automotive world has ever seen -- four turbochargers force-feeding 16 cylinders, which drive all four wheels through a seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox. Even five years after the Veyron's launch, the car remains without peer on a few key points: It is more powerful (1,001 horsepower) faster (a top speed of 253 mph), and more expensive (in excess of $2 million) than any production car on the planet.
As if it wasn't special enough in its own right, the Veyron 16.4 (despite a lifetime production cap of 300 units) has seen its production run enlivened by one dramatic special edition after another, including the polished metal and bare carbon fiber Pur Sang, the supremely stylish Fbg par Hermès, the black-on-black Sang Noir, the matte-finished Bleu Centenaire, a colorful quartet of L'Edition Centenaire cars. And last year came the most dramatic of them all, the Grand Sport, which notably adds one more moving part to the mix: a 36-pound removable polycarbonate roof panel, which when removed transforms the fastest coupe on the planet to the fastest convertible.
Beneath the Grand Sport's diminutive front lid resides a black canvas soft top that opens...