The German autobahn presents itself as one of the few places where drivers are able to legally explore the top speed of their vehicles. Sure, this could be moderately fun in something like a Golf GTI or a M440i xDrive, however exploring the top speed of a supercar or a hypercar as a completely different box of frogs.
In November, the owner of a Bugatti Chiron, Mr Radim Passer, made his way to an unrestricted section of the autobahn near Wittenburg, south-west of Berlin. It is worth noting that Passer is a stranger neither to this stretch of the autobahn, nor the heady side of 400 km/h – six years ago he clocked 402 km/h in his Veyron.
Early one morning, when the roads were quiet and his line of sight clear and true, the owner of the 1 103 kW Chiron mashed his right foot into the beautifully milled accelerator, allowing all 1 600 Nm to surge him on to a top speed of 414 km/h, just shy of the hypercar’s limited top speed of 420 km/h.
While not detracting from this achievement at all, it needs to be mentioned that this figure was recorded from the vehicle’s speedometer, which of course isn’t completely accurate, and not from a GPS recording device. However, it is still phenomenal that such speeds can be reached on a public road, legally, by a production vehicle.
While the ‘standard’ Chiron is limited to 420 km/h, the Super Sport 300+ is capable of reaching speeds nearing the 500 km/h mark, topping out at 490,4 km/h. Customer units are limited, though, to just 440 km/h, oh bother.
There’s no denying that the Chiron is a phenomenal marvel of engineering, and so it’ll be interesting to see what Bugatti’s next move will be now that the brand is in the hands of a certain Mr Rimac…
