MacKenzie

“THE CHIRON SUPER SPORT’S POWERPLANT IS LIKELY TO BE THE MOST POWERFUL ROAD-LEGAL, FULLY HOMOLOGATED INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE EVER BUILT”

- 

ANDY WALLACE has been to the edge of the envelope more than any driver in the world.

On August 2, 2019, Wallace set the production car speed record, 490.4837km/h – yes, he remembers it to the fourth decimal place – in the Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+ on the 8.7km straight of the giant high-speed circuit at Volkswagen’s Ehra-Lessien proving ground.

During the extensive testing sessions under the watchful eye of VW Group engineers, Wallace reckons he travelled more than 1000km at 400km/h or more. He says he didn’t really notice the speed, that after a while the brain simply recalibrates, and driving at 400km/h or more feels perfectly natural.

Up to a point.

The regular Chiron Super Sport is limited to 440km/h with the go-fast key enabled, making it 20km/h faster than the regular Chiron and Chiron Sport models. As such, the engineers were relaxed during runs up to 460km/h in the specially tweaked, long-tail Chiron Super Sport 300+. “Once we started to go above that,” Wallace says, “they straightened up and started to take a very close interest in things.”