Less time than you need to microwave dinner.
With various manufacturers are bringing their new wares to show at this years’ Frankfurt motor show, hypercar manufacturer Bugatti didn’t want to be left out. It couldn’t manage a new car just for the event (could you imagine how much work that would need), so instead it decided that it would enthral crowds by showing off what its existing hypercar is capable of when pushed to the limit.
In the hands of former Formula One driver (and Indy500 and Daytona 24hrs winner) Juan Pablo Montoya, the Bugatti Chiron set out to achieve the best time going from 0-400km/h (that’s not a typo), and back to nought again. Why? Because they’ve already decided they’ll reveal the top speed in 2018, and because Frankfurt would have been boring without something to show off.
In the video, we see the car hit 400km/h from rest in just 32.6-seconds, no easy task within itself. What we don’t get to see is the car slamming on the brakes after having achieved 400km/h in 2.6-kilometres, and then coming to a dead halt just 491-metres and 9.3-seconds later. In all, the car used just 3.12-kilometres to achieve this feat, and the whole thing took just 41.96-seconds.
What also wasn’t shown to us is the the face of Mr. Montoya, which must have suffered some disfigurement as a result of those forces.
When Bugatti approached him to pilot the run, he said to them that he would have “done anything Bugatti wanted” to drive a Chiron. No helmet required either, as he reported that the Chiron provided “such a feeling of security and reliability that I was entirely relaxed, and really enjoyed myself during my two days with the car.”
With only 500 of these massively-desirable hypercars to be built (with 300 of them sold already), there’s little doubt that this will sell out quickly. With 1120kW on offer from the 8.0-litre quad-turbo W12 engine and some 1600Nm threatening to separate alloy from rubber, the Chiron hits 100km/h from rest in just 2.5-seconds, and has a speculated top-speed somewhere between 420km/h-500km/h. The latter is becoming more believable now.
You can read our previous reports on the Chiron here, and stay tuned to CarShowroom as we bring you more updates as they come.
