HOT PURSUIT

GUNNING FOR 250 MPH IN BUGATTI'S CHIRON SUPER SPORT

- JONNY LIEBERMAN

FAST 

Such a funny idea. I traveled to Florida to attempt to drive 400 kph in a Bugatti Chiron Super Sport. That’s about 250 miles per hour—precisely 248.548 for the always-a-tree, never-a-forest types. But the Airbus A321 I flew to Orlando on has a cruising speed of 544 mph. Earth rotates faster than 1,000 mph at the equator. Our planet travels through space while orbiting the sun at more than 67,000 mph. As Einstein might well have explained, fast is relative.

What matters is that Bugatti lined up a space shuttle runway so I had a little more than 2 miles of acceleration space and then 4,000 feet to whoa down the car from what would be, should be, the fastest I’d ever driven. Before this outing, I’d topped 200 mph a handful of times, my best being an indicated 207 mph in a Lamborghini Huracán Performante on the other space shuttle runway, in California. This Bugatti run would be much faster, reaching speeds only a handful of people have ever done.

The Chiron Super Sport produces 1,578 horsepower from its tried, true, and still awesome 8.0-liter quad-turbo W-16 engine. Plus 1,180 lb-ft of torque. Had we been on a longer runway, it might have been possible to aim for the Super Sport’s top speed of 273 mph. True, Bugatti makes an even faster car, the Chiron Super Sport 300+, which British legend Andy Wallace drove to nearly 305 mph.