The Bugatti Chiron Super Sport, officially given for 440 km/h electronically limited (or 490 km/h in 300+ version with the Bugatti factory driver at the wheel).
When the Chiron Super Sport 300+ reached a top speed of 490 km/h on the Ehra Lessien speed ring in Germany in the summer of 2019, Bugatti specified that it was “the very last record attempt”. The Molsheim brand, then owned by the Volkswagen group, officially abandoned this type of goal after having already achieved several speed records (with the Veyron, Veyron Super Sport and Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse).
But Bugatti no longer belongs directly to the Volkswagen group and has changed direction (even if Porsche still holds 40% of the brand’s capital). Now supervised by Rimac boss Mate Rimac, the brand is once again interested in speed records: not only has the Mistral just become the fastest open car in the world at 453 km/h, but the Croatian has another goal more ambitious.
500 km/h
He has just declared in an interview with the English journalists from Top Gear that he dreamed of seeing a Bugatti reach a speed whose number “started with a 5”. He believes that tire technology has progressed a lot recently and would theoretically allow us to go even further in this type of record.
The Tourbillon, replacing the Chiron, however seems less suited to very high speeds than the Chiron on paper: it has a 1000 horsepower naturally aspirated V16 while the Chiron Super Sport 300+ (the one which reached 490 km/h) had of a 1,600 horsepower W16. The Tourbillon produces well 1,800 horsepower in total maximum powerbut with the reinforcement of three electric motors which would probably be less efficient at more than 450 km/h.
Let us finally point out that according to the journalists from Challenge, the boss of the small French manufacturer Delage Laurent Tapie also aims to exceed 500 km/h with a new supercar marketed in 2028. Knowing that Koenigsegg and Hennessey – two small manufacturers of ultra supercars -powerful- are also seeking to reach this figure, we wonder who will be the first to exceed this new level.
457 km/h, the current record
Currently, the fastest car in the world officially remains the SSC Tuatara. Powered by a 1,750 horsepower twin-turbo V8, this American supercar hit the headlines in 2020 by announcing that it had reached 532 km/h in top speed in a record approved by the rules of the art… before finally admitting never having reached this figure. The Tuatara still managed to officially beat the speed record for road cars a little later, with the figure of 457 km/h (average speed of the two attempts in both directions of traffic as required by the record book ), beating the 447 km/h of the Koenigsegg Agera RS reached a few years earlier.
The 490 km/h claimed by the Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+ does not, however, serve as an official record, because they were only reached in one direction of traffic. At the time, the Molsheim manufacturer declared that it had not launched the car in the other direction of traffic due to fears of overheating of the tires, which were more sensitive to temperature rise due to the specificity of the asphalt. circuit.
