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.”