Features

Confession time. We at Top Gear - and we're not alone in this - have expended a lot of energy over the past four years saying the Veyron would be proved a folly.

We pointed out that if it had been designed to cleave the air first, rather than to look good first and then suffer painful adaptation for the air, it would have been a far easier job for everyone with a better end result.

That if it was three-quarters the power and three-quarters the weight it would have pretty well the same real-world acceleration.

The pointless/useless 250mph target, and the 1,000bhp needed to achieve it, were silly aims that would be bound to compromise the rest of the car's talent.

They did too. But not by much. Even though I've been in a Carrera GT at the same speed, nothing beats the way the Veyron bats towards 200. It's too wide and you can't see out of it well enough for really twisty roads. And, oh, there's no boot.

But in the end even those compromises look trivial compared with the engineers' initial task. This car is so complete, so finished.

To manage it, Volkswagen called in every possible favour with the laws of engineering. It walked the tightrope between the science of the possible and the art of the impossible with what now looks like an easy swagger. But it wasn't easy. It was so hard the company will lose a fortune on every one.

VW has given us this car because it was too embarrassed to say it couldn't do it. Given us? While £800,000 (give or take an exchange rate flutter) is a giveaway price, I know none of us will ever get close. But look at it this way: it's a gift knowing it exists.

But now everyone knows the difficulty, and what a business calamity it was for Volkswagen, surely no other car maker will chance their arm again. There'll never be another one like this. Like there will never be another Concorde.

The Veyron and the plane stick two fingers up to physics and economics and ecology. We had to mark it this year, because we will never get the chance again.