Ex-Stig Ben Collins drives the 273mph Bugatti Chiron Super Sport

**The Bugatti Chiron Super Sport: A Triumph of Engineering Excellence**

**Introduction**

Nestled at Bugatti's Headquarters, the air is thick with innovation and a relentless pursuit of the impossible. Here, the Bugatti Chiron Super Sport stands as a testament to human ingenuity, pushing boundaries and redefining what a hypercar can achieve. This article delves into the journey that led to this marvel, exploring its history, technical prowess, driving dynamics, and the engineering brilliance behind it.

**Historical Context: The Evolution of Bugatti**

Bugatti's legacy is steeped in innovation, beginning with the EB110 in 1993, the first hypercar capable of reaching 60 mph in under three seconds. Its boxy design was as formidable as Tyson Fury himself. However, it was the Veyron in 2005 that truly cemented Bugatti's place in automotive history with speeds exceeding 250 mph—unprecedented and likened to supersonic travel.

**Technical Specifications: The Apex of Performance**

The Chiron Super Sport represents the pinnacle of this legacy. With an astonishing 1600 horsepower, it accelerates from 0 to 60 mph in a mere 2.4 seconds, electronically limited to 273 mph but capable of reaching 304 mph unrestricted—a record for production road cars. The engine's air consumption alone is remarkable at 60,000 liters per minute.

**Aerodynamics and Engineering: Cutting Through the Wind**

To achieve such speeds, Bugatti elongated the Chiron by 25 centimeters, enhancing its teardrop shape for optimal aerodynamics. This design reduces drag, crucial for maintaining stability at over 300 mph. Engineers faced a daunting challenge balancing centrifugal forces and aero pressure to prevent flipping, resulting in a car that's as stable as it is powerful.

**Powertrain: A Beast Beneath the Hood**

The heart of the Chiron Super Sport is its re-engineered W16 engine. While retaining its physical form, 80% of its internals were revised from the Veyron to deliver an impressive 1600 horsepower—400 hp per wheel. This redistribution of power ensures a balanced yet exhilarating driving experience.

**Cabin: Luxury Meets Functionality**

Inside, the cabin offers a blend of elegance and functionality. Luxurious leather and extruded aluminum create a tactile, spacious environment. Controls are slender, evoking agility, though optical illusions might deceive. The focus is on driver engagement, with a front-end feel that's both precise and rewarding.

**Driving Experience: Power and Precision**

Behind the wheel, the Chiron Super Sport feels like a well-balanced athlete. Launch control delivers explosive acceleration, while stability systems manage power delivery to prevent wheelspin. Despite its ferocity, the car remains surprisingly approachable, a testament to Bugatti's engineering finesse.

**Cornering Dynamics: Mastering G-Force**

The Chiron excels in corners, with corner-carving abilities that defy expectations. The car hugs turns like a seasoned pro, offering confidence-inspiring grip. Even at high speeds, the balance between understeer and oversteer is meticulously controlled, making it a joy for both amateur and professional drivers.

**Launch Control: A Thrill Beyond Words**

Experiencing launch control is an unforgettable thrill. With maximum braking pressure applied, pressing the button unleashes 1600 horsepower, propelling the car forward with g-force reminiscent of a fighter jet. The controlled power surge is both exhilarating and humbling, a reminder of the machine's raw potential.

**Engineering Excellence: Over-Engineering Done Right**

Bugatti's philosophy is clear: over-engineering isn't enough; every component must be flawless. From the carbon ceramic brakes to the aerodynamic design, every detail is meticulously crafted to deliver perfection. The result is a car that feels like an extension of the driver, ready to conquer any road.

**Conclusion: A New Era in Hypercar Design**

The Bugatti Chiron Super Sport is more than a car; it's a statement of intent. It redefines performance while maintaining accessibility, offering drivers a tool as powerful as it is easy to use. At €3.5 million, it's a luxury that transcends speed, embodying innovation and engineering excellence.

In the world of hypercars, Bugatti stands alone, crafting machines that not only push boundaries but redefine them. The Chiron Super Sport is proof that with vision and precision, anything is possible— even exceeding 304 mph.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthis is bugatti hq where their mission is to reach for the sky as far as i'm concerned the first hypercar was the bugatti eb110 the first car to reach 60 miles per hour and around three seconds and it had a kind of boxy look it was like the tyson fury of hyper cars when bugatti returned with the veyron they returned in force in 2005 with speeds of 250 miles per hour it was totally unprecedented like the invention of supersonic air travel in the concorde and that leads us to this moment the bugatti chiron super sport this car is an exercise in unbelievable numbers 1600 horsepower 2.4 seconds to 60 electronically limited to 273 miles per hour but unrestricted it would go on to 304 miles per hour the fastest speed ever achieved by any production road car i drove the veyron supersport on top gear some years ago so drive tribe has sent me to see how this compared it turns out that mike chose an abysmal week to be on holiday the statistics with this machine are just mind-blowing i mean the veyron was impressive the engine was consuming 45 000 liters of air a minute this one's consuming 60 000 liters of air in it to power this engine when it's really going for it michelin could only get the tyres to be rated to run at top speed for 15 minutes but never been tested because you ran out of fuel in 12. in fact that's the only thing you've got to worry about when you're driving a car this potent is remembering where the next petrol station is and making sure that it's got the correct run for this beast with the attack of air hitting this car at speeds above 200 miles an hour the aero forces are just ridiculous the centrifugal force in the tyres 5000 g and something like 4 000 kilograms of aero pressure flying around this car so the balancing act to get this car to prevent it from flipping over even at 300 miles per hour was a real mind tease for the engineers when they built this thing but to help reduce drag the car was elongated by 25 centimeters you've got that little extra piece of arrow in the back that just made the car cut through the air that bit better gave it more of the teardrop shape which you know gives more error efficiency the boost of power obviously from this reconfigured engine significantly different from the original 16 cylinder motor the 8 liter beast powering this baby the physical block of the engine is pretty much the same but 80 percent of the internals revised from the veyron to the cheer on to give it that big jump in power to 1500 and more fine tuning to bring the super sport up to 1600. the way this chiron goes about demolishing stretches of road is beyond impressive but there's more to the super sport than outright speed the cabin is a wonderful place to be an elegant blend of reassuringly tactile leather and extruded aluminium it feels more spacious than the veyron but there's a bit of an optical illusion at play pikachu shrunk the gear selector the controls are more slender but it gives a sense of agility the question is does that translate onto the road you do tend to feel it the front end first just clawing at the tarmac frankly i prefer it that way than feeling the rear end of this baby swing around it's just too much going on you're operating at such a high level of grip you don't want the tail swinging around at will what a absolute beast car really welcomes you in it does hug the corners it's fantastic in the bank's corners you really feel it tucking in the irony is that with this much power it's basically the equivalent of an m3 on each wheel 1600 horsepower you've got to break that down 400 horsepower per tire it's just unbelievable it's just been harnessed so beautifully into this really easy to drive package that's thanks to the depth and breadth of engineering that goes into these speed machines because at bugatti over engineering is just the starting point it's not good enough for their cars to simply be fast they must be refined impeccably built and ready to defy physics at any given moment that'll do doesn't exist in the bugatti vocabulary we've been driving this for a while now and i'm realizing that i actually i still haven't put my foot to the floor my instinct is just saying just keep it on the island and we're surrounded by trees i guess there's the odd damp patch on the road close to zero degrees so maybe there might be a little bit of ice but come on ben this is what we're here for but the car's telling me too because it's telling me just very gently i've only used 1384 bhp is a little gauge here that tells you that so i have still got some capacity left so oh you just feel there's so much power there that you've just got to give it the respect that it's due so much respect in fact that i need a chaperone to keep me in check although i won't complain as my co-driver for the day is this bloke andy wallace winner of the holy trinity le mans daytona three times winner sebring two times you've won that that's it dude thank you very much for um guiding me through this it's um it's an absolute honour to be um in this car with you as my chaperone well thank you very much and thank you for scaring the living daylights out of me already yeah we just got started so you've worked on this project for how long i've been at bugatti for 11 years and i've had an absolute ball every day is different and every day is amazing in this car yeah but you were the one you pinned it to 304 miles an hour is that right 304.7724 if you don't mind okay what does that feel like i'll tell you what it is pretty terrifying in some ways because stuff is coming at you so fast you pass a kilometer in seven seconds or a mile in 11 and change yeah everything's coming towards you there's all sorts of things to think about but what a feeling when you've done it it's amazing it is incredible but for daily running so this car although it's not the 300 plus model it's still the sheer on super sport it is capable of 300 miles an hour if you put it into the right mode it's still capable of that speed it is i mean we electronically limit it to 273 that's much more sensitive it's fine yeah i'm right in thinking this car also has launch control yes it does do you want to try it i would like to try it definitely like to try it okay there's a straight bit of road here it's going to put my g sensor up absolutely one of those high-tech g7 it's a very high tech here we go little air freshener that's going to do that right brake on maximum pressure press the launch control button it's engaged full power oh that was amazing that let rip on the rear isn't it obviously that was in the correct launch mode that took what two it's 2.3 seconds to 60 miles an hour isn't it it did yep and i was looking at your gauge and i saw it was 1.5 g okay excellent perfect but we did get wheelspin so the car is allowing some slip is that right yeah in order to get off the line quickly if you limit all the slip it just restricts the car so you need some slip to get going yeah and so it allows it allows that but then something changed because i felt that it was the rear axle i felt going so the first time to be driving around i felt that so it released on the rear and then it just suddenly all four just went as a warner and it just had that massive surge of power and my my brain i felt some compression in my brain did you also have this sort of feeling yeah i got a bit dizzy slight bruises on the back of my eyes yeah where they hit the back of the sockets it's just phenomenal great feeling though absolutely the corner amazing the g-force and there's no g-suit i mean basically it is like flying a fighter jet at ground level that's what this is it's got the same sort of performance 2g under-breaking from these carbon ceramic brakes there we are full power yeah once she goodies up you're just in another world i mean i realize that a lot of people do all these tests on the straights see why but this is where this car also is a hunter killer drivable power you just can't be on full power the whole time that's just not real world can't do 300 miles an hour going to the shops or driving up this mountain the true test is in the cornering and it's just wonderful car is just taunting me though saying come on you haven't got it in you to give me the full beans but i'm trying and i'm working on it warp speed very very quickly that little voice just whispering all the time engage the warp drive give it full power for me it feels like bugatti has really come of age with the chiron the super sport seems to achieve two almost impossible goals to increase the performance from the original veyron by a huge factor at the same time making it accessible this car isn't difficult to drive it's it's really easy it feels light on its feet balanced it's taken the veyron which perhaps at times was a fraction wooden a little bit heavy in the controls not so keen to change direction eradicated that and created something that is really talking to the driver all the time sure there are other car makers that will take up these challenges of beating physics the way bugatti has and some will achieve it but few will match the flawless execution of sophisticated styling and robust engineering in every part of the machine and it's not just about looks the design oozes confidence like an egyptian pyramid bugatti have achieved a seemingly impossible task delivering hyper performance in the form of a simple tool that anybody could use for cruising around on that note alone it's worth every penny of the 3.5 million youthis is bugatti hq where their mission is to reach for the sky as far as i'm concerned the first hypercar was the bugatti eb110 the first car to reach 60 miles per hour and around three seconds and it had a kind of boxy look it was like the tyson fury of hyper cars when bugatti returned with the veyron they returned in force in 2005 with speeds of 250 miles per hour it was totally unprecedented like the invention of supersonic air travel in the concorde and that leads us to this moment the bugatti chiron super sport this car is an exercise in unbelievable numbers 1600 horsepower 2.4 seconds to 60 electronically limited to 273 miles per hour but unrestricted it would go on to 304 miles per hour the fastest speed ever achieved by any production road car i drove the veyron supersport on top gear some years ago so drive tribe has sent me to see how this compared it turns out that mike chose an abysmal week to be on holiday the statistics with this machine are just mind-blowing i mean the veyron was impressive the engine was consuming 45 000 liters of air a minute this one's consuming 60 000 liters of air in it to power this engine when it's really going for it michelin could only get the tyres to be rated to run at top speed for 15 minutes but never been tested because you ran out of fuel in 12. in fact that's the only thing you've got to worry about when you're driving a car this potent is remembering where the next petrol station is and making sure that it's got the correct run for this beast with the attack of air hitting this car at speeds above 200 miles an hour the aero forces are just ridiculous the centrifugal force in the tyres 5000 g and something like 4 000 kilograms of aero pressure flying around this car so the balancing act to get this car to prevent it from flipping over even at 300 miles per hour was a real mind tease for the engineers when they built this thing but to help reduce drag the car was elongated by 25 centimeters you've got that little extra piece of arrow in the back that just made the car cut through the air that bit better gave it more of the teardrop shape which you know gives more error efficiency the boost of power obviously from this reconfigured engine significantly different from the original 16 cylinder motor the 8 liter beast powering this baby the physical block of the engine is pretty much the same but 80 percent of the internals revised from the veyron to the cheer on to give it that big jump in power to 1500 and more fine tuning to bring the super sport up to 1600. the way this chiron goes about demolishing stretches of road is beyond impressive but there's more to the super sport than outright speed the cabin is a wonderful place to be an elegant blend of reassuringly tactile leather and extruded aluminium it feels more spacious than the veyron but there's a bit of an optical illusion at play pikachu shrunk the gear selector the controls are more slender but it gives a sense of agility the question is does that translate onto the road you do tend to feel it the front end first just clawing at the tarmac frankly i prefer it that way than feeling the rear end of this baby swing around it's just too much going on you're operating at such a high level of grip you don't want the tail swinging around at will what a absolute beast car really welcomes you in it does hug the corners it's fantastic in the bank's corners you really feel it tucking in the irony is that with this much power it's basically the equivalent of an m3 on each wheel 1600 horsepower you've got to break that down 400 horsepower per tire it's just unbelievable it's just been harnessed so beautifully into this really easy to drive package that's thanks to the depth and breadth of engineering that goes into these speed machines because at bugatti over engineering is just the starting point it's not good enough for their cars to simply be fast they must be refined impeccably built and ready to defy physics at any given moment that'll do doesn't exist in the bugatti vocabulary we've been driving this for a while now and i'm realizing that i actually i still haven't put my foot to the floor my instinct is just saying just keep it on the island and we're surrounded by trees i guess there's the odd damp patch on the road close to zero degrees so maybe there might be a little bit of ice but come on ben this is what we're here for but the car's telling me too because it's telling me just very gently i've only used 1384 bhp is a little gauge here that tells you that so i have still got some capacity left so oh you just feel there's so much power there that you've just got to give it the respect that it's due so much respect in fact that i need a chaperone to keep me in check although i won't complain as my co-driver for the day is this bloke andy wallace winner of the holy trinity le mans daytona three times winner sebring two times you've won that that's it dude thank you very much for um guiding me through this it's um it's an absolute honour to be um in this car with you as my chaperone well thank you very much and thank you for scaring the living daylights out of me already yeah we just got started so you've worked on this project for how long i've been at bugatti for 11 years and i've had an absolute ball every day is different and every day is amazing in this car yeah but you were the one you pinned it to 304 miles an hour is that right 304.7724 if you don't mind okay what does that feel like i'll tell you what it is pretty terrifying in some ways because stuff is coming at you so fast you pass a kilometer in seven seconds or a mile in 11 and change yeah everything's coming towards you there's all sorts of things to think about but what a feeling when you've done it it's amazing it is incredible but for daily running so this car although it's not the 300 plus model it's still the sheer on super sport it is capable of 300 miles an hour if you put it into the right mode it's still capable of that speed it is i mean we electronically limit it to 273 that's much more sensitive it's fine yeah i'm right in thinking this car also has launch control yes it does do you want to try it i would like to try it definitely like to try it okay there's a straight bit of road here it's going to put my g sensor up absolutely one of those high-tech g7 it's a very high tech here we go little air freshener that's going to do that right brake on maximum pressure press the launch control button it's engaged full power oh that was amazing that let rip on the rear isn't it obviously that was in the correct launch mode that took what two it's 2.3 seconds to 60 miles an hour isn't it it did yep and i was looking at your gauge and i saw it was 1.5 g okay excellent perfect but we did get wheelspin so the car is allowing some slip is that right yeah in order to get off the line quickly if you limit all the slip it just restricts the car so you need some slip to get going yeah and so it allows it allows that but then something changed because i felt that it was the rear axle i felt going so the first time to be driving around i felt that so it released on the rear and then it just suddenly all four just went as a warner and it just had that massive surge of power and my my brain i felt some compression in my brain did you also have this sort of feeling yeah i got a bit dizzy slight bruises on the back of my eyes yeah where they hit the back of the sockets it's just phenomenal great feeling though absolutely the corner amazing the g-force and there's no g-suit i mean basically it is like flying a fighter jet at ground level that's what this is it's got the same sort of performance 2g under-breaking from these carbon ceramic brakes there we are full power yeah once she goodies up you're just in another world i mean i realize that a lot of people do all these tests on the straights see why but this is where this car also is a hunter killer drivable power you just can't be on full power the whole time that's just not real world can't do 300 miles an hour going to the shops or driving up this mountain the true test is in the cornering and it's just wonderful car is just taunting me though saying come on you haven't got it in you to give me the full beans but i'm trying and i'm working on it warp speed very very quickly that little voice just whispering all the time engage the warp drive give it full power for me it feels like bugatti has really come of age with the chiron the super sport seems to achieve two almost impossible goals to increase the performance from the original veyron by a huge factor at the same time making it accessible this car isn't difficult to drive it's it's really easy it feels light on its feet balanced it's taken the veyron which perhaps at times was a fraction wooden a little bit heavy in the controls not so keen to change direction eradicated that and created something that is really talking to the driver all the time sure there are other car makers that will take up these challenges of beating physics the way bugatti has and some will achieve it but few will match the flawless execution of sophisticated styling and robust engineering in every part of the machine and it's not just about looks the design oozes confidence like an egyptian pyramid bugatti have achieved a seemingly impossible task delivering hyper performance in the form of a simple tool that anybody could use for cruising around on that note alone it's worth every penny of the 3.5 million you\n"