Bugatti Chiron's First Drive Will Make You Think You Drive a Plane

Bugatti Chiron's First Drive Will Make You Think You Drive a Plane: What can we tell you about the Bugatti Chiron, well that’s not one of those cars you can easily take your eyes from. It looks perfect from head to tow, and that’s one thing we are sure about. It has a peak spead of 377 km/h (do the math, and that's 234 mph), with the quad-turbocharged W16 squeezing a max of 1,466 horsepower at 6,691 rpm.You’ll get the felling that you’re driving a plane and not a car.

For the 500 wealthy souls who will take delivery, the $2,998,000 Chiron is most certainly an emotional purchase. But it's backed by a battery of left-brain thinking aimed at making it a quicker, smoother, more involving car than its famously controversial predecessor. For starters, only five percent of the engine's parts are retained from the Veyron, the bulk of the new parts getting strengthened, lightened, and re-engineered to better cope with the thermal demands of the heightened output. The four turbochargers are 68 percent larger and now work sequentially so the first set can facilitate a torque plateau between 2,000 and 4,000 rpm. The larger, second set of turbos extend the flat line to 6,600 rpm. The seven-speed gearbox manufactured by Ricardo, which is essentially the only dry-sump dual-clutch on the production car market, has been strengthened and reinforced to withstand the engine's thumping 1,180 pound-feet of torque. The immense drivetrain is housed by a carbon-fiber chassis by Dallara that requires 1,500 hours to build.

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