Bugatti Veyron Super Sport news - Veyron SS hits 431km/h - 2010

06 July 2010 - 11:00

Veyron Super Sport hits 431km/h

The Bugatti Veyron Super Sport has set a new production car land speed record, hitting 431km/h at VW's Ehra-Lessien proving ground. . Well, 431.072km/h, thrashing the 407km/h set by the SSC Ultimate Aero in Nevada in 2007.

You don't need us to tell you this, but that is obscenely, absurdly fast. To set the production speed record is impressive. To smash it by 18km/h is astonishing.

Then again, the Veyron Super Sport is an astonishing car. Effectively the final iteration of the Veyron, it shares the same 8.0-litre, 16-cylinder engine, but with larger turbos and bigger intercoolers to push power to 882kW (or a more impressive-sounding 1,183bhp), a jump of 146kW. Torque increases from 1248Nm to an astonishing 1499Nm.

See more pics of the Veyron Super Sport

It's lighter than the standard Veyron, too: that black'n'orange skin is constructed solely from carbon fibre, saving around 50kg. The Super Sport gets stiffer suspension, aiding high-speed stability and allowing lateral acceleration of 1.4g. Good work if you've spotted the new NACA ducts on the roof and the reworked double diffuser.

The Super Sport will hit 100km/h in the same 2.5 seconds as the standard Veyron (and never was such an adjective less appropriate), but its 0-200km/h and 0-300km/h times are reduced to 7.3 seconds and 15.0 seconds. 200km/h in just over seven seconds. Yowch.

On the Ehra-Lessien test track, the Super Sports hit 427.933km/h on its upwind run, before reaching 434.211km/h on the return leg.

"We took it that we would reach an average value of 425km/h, but the conditions were perfect and allowed even more," Bugatti chief engineer Dr Wolfgang Schreiber said after.

Now, we wouldn't want to give anything away, but you know how TopGear has always been pretty intimately involved with high-speed runs in the Veyron? Remember, for example, James's blast to 407km/h in Series 9?

Well, let's just say... it would have been a bit strange for us not to have been part of this astonishing record run in some capacity. We're not saying any more, but keep a close eye on all things TopGear in the coming weeks...