Bugatti Grand Sport (2009)

Good timing with the new Bugatti Grand Sport (2009) hypercar. The polar ice caps are melting and the world’s in the middle of the worst financial crisis since John Steinbeck was still scratching around in the dust bowl looking for a pencil, yet Bugatti manages to gauge the zeitgeist perfectly and unleash a £1.5m convertible supercar that emits 596g/km CO2.

Sleeping polar bears? One little Bugatti isn’t going to hurt, and anyway, there’ll always be sufficient disgustingly rich people to buy a truly outrageous car like the drop-top Veyron Grand Sport.

So how fast is the world’s fastest hair dryer?

As fast as the regular Veyron, at least with the roof in place when you can insert the second key to engage the top speed mode that drops the car closer to the ground and tweaks the angle of the spoilers. Do that, find enough road and you’ll hit 253mph. With the roof off, you can’t use the second key and are limited to a mere 224mph. Pah!

What about performance I can actually use? Will the Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport (2009) beat my neighbour’s Nissan GT-R away from the lights?

Bugatti claims the 53kg weight penalty knocks a couple of tenths off the coupe’s 2.5sec 0-62mph time, but unless you stray onto Santa Pod drag strip when the top fuellers are doing their stuff, you’re not going to come across much that can beat it. Don’t believe me? How about zero to 186mph (300km/h) in less than 17sec? You won’t find a Ferrari or Lamborghini that can get within the same time zone as the Bugatti when it’s delivering all 987bhp.

In fact it’s truly unsettling the first few times you give it the lot and hold it there in second gear and through third. I’ve been fortunate enough to have driven plenty of quick cars – including a Mclaren F1 – and I was still startled by the kick in the back. If you’ve never driven anything swifter than a hot hatch, there’s a good chance that you might feel genuinely scared, it’s that quick. As soon as the quad-turbo W16 passes 2200rpm all 922lb ft of torque is at your bidding, though even that much twist can’t trouble the four-wheel drive system or £5k-a-corner Michelins.

£5k a corner! So the Bugatti's not a car for drifting then?

You’d struggle to get the Grand Sport out of shape, at least in the dry and on the road. There’s simply not enough room. Push really hard on tighter corners and you might get a little understeer, but that’s your lot. Don’t go thinking that the Grand Sport is a blunt instrument though. Its steering is surprisingly delicate and precise and you soon find yourself nibbling verges in a way you never thought possible in a car this wide, this expensive.

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