Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Super Sport, 2011: It's Superman

The Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Super Sport is among the most rare production cars in the world, with perhaps only 40 manufactured. Dan Neil, automotive critic of the Wall Street Journal, is the first journalist to test drive the powerful machine that recently set the speed record for a production car at 268 mph.Neil, who won the Pulitzer Price for criticism in 2004, concludes his review with the paragraph: ” . . . But for me, what it is is simply the fastest car I will ever drive. No more waiting. Superman is here.”

And in one early passage, Neil, whose column is titled Rumble Seat, writes:

“The Super Sport can accelerate from highway speeds to more than 200 mph in the time it takes you to read this sentence out loud. Literally.”

“And then, just when other hypercars—Lambos, Ferraris, Paganis and even rarer isotopes—run out of steam, the Super Sport accelerates harder. This experience quickly exhausts one’s supply of Old Norse oaths and curses and one is reduced to childish wows and holy cows.”

“At full throttle in the Super Sport, the world comes at you in one ferocious, howling, soul-shaking, Newtonian sneeze.”

Here are some facts and figures about the 2011 Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Super Sport:

Price: $2.8 million (estimated)
Horsepower: 1,200 horsepower at 6,400 rpm
Curb weight: 4,043.6 pounds
Acceleration: 0-100km (62 mph): 2.5 seconds; 0-300km (186 mph), 14.6 seconds.
Top speed: 268 mph
EPA fuel economy: 9 mpg (city); 11 mpg (hwy)
Cargo space: 3 cubic feet

To read Dan Neil’s full account of this test drive of the Bugatti Super Sport, visit: Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Super Sport