We’re driving Bugatti’s latest ode to unchained velocity and opulence, the Chiron Super Sport, across the countryside of Alsace, France. Golden wheat fields ripple to either side as the physical force of the $3.8 million hypercar bludgeons the June air like a hammer. My copilot, the legendary racing driver Andy Wallace, sits beside me while listing the absolute bonkers numbers of this engineering abomination. Things like the 273-mph top speed and 1,600-hp output, requiring a full 8.0-liters of displacement, 16 cylinders and four turbos to achieve. A full bore 0-62 mph run—in just 2.4 seconds, mind you—requires 1,000 liters of air to be sucked through its 10 radiators every second.
Wallace mentions that at 200 mph the Chiron boasts more than double the downforce than it weighs. “So theoretically,” I ask, “does that mean if you were in a round tunnel, you could actually drive it upside down?” “Yeah, it does…. Somebody nutty enough somewhere has done it. It would be brilliant, but yeah I don’t want to do it.” This from the man who once drove the fastest production-car run ever
