The idea of a ‘fast car’ is, more or less, a highly subjective opinion. Someone who has spent the majority of their life driving around in an aging minivan might get into any number of JDM cars from the 1990s and consider them incredibly fast. Likewise, someone who has ridden nothing but public transportation for a considerable amount of time might climb into one of the best muscle cars of all time and believe that they have hit their limit for speed.
But, beyond muscle cars and even supercars, there is another stratosphere where the apex predators of the autoverse roam. The hypercar world is beyond mere mortals and their pithy 401Ks. This realm is reserved for superstar athletes, mega-celebrities, hedge fund managers, royalty, and the occasional PowerBall winner. And just like the handful of career arcs that lead to the kind of wealth it takes to cut a check for $3 million at a car dealership, there are only a select number of manufacturers that dare to enter the high-stakes game of the ultra-rich. While McLaren could be said to have created the first hypercar with its stupefyingly fast F1 in the 1990s, since then, companies like Pagani and Koenigsegg have jockeyed for pole position among the stars, but it is Bugatti that currently stands as king of the hill. But which Bugatti is the fastest of the fast? Read on to find out…
Bugatti from Veyron to Chiron
Bugatti stormed onto the scene in 2005 and ripped the top-speed crown away from the long-standing champion McLaren F1, which held the production car speed record from 1992 until 2005. The quad-turbo W-16 Veyron bested the McLaren’s 240.1 mph top speed with its own 253.81 mph speed run on April 29, 2005. The Veyron later ended up topping its own record in Super Sport trim with a top run of 267.856 mph.
Taking awesome and making it awesome-r, Bugatti then brought the Chiron into the world. Modifying and updating the already mind-melting W-16 of the Veyron, the Chiron took the same 8.0-liter aluminum block and heads DOHC 64-valve quad-turbocharged motor and, among other things, dialed up the boost from 18 psi to a staggering 26.8 psi in the ultimate Chiron Super Sport, for a total of 1,578 hp and 1,180 pound-feet of torque.
The Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+ was created to be the fastest car in the world
Topping out at just over 267 mph in the Chiron Super Sport, Bugatti execs decided to shoot for the moon and do everything in their power to optimize the car for a top speed run that could eclipse the impossible 300 mph mark.
Bugatti goes to great lengths to detail precisely how the 300+ differs from the other slower Chiron trims available on its website:
“The Chiron Super Sport 300+ is visually distinct from the Chiron, not least due to its extended and aerodynamically optimised body, which is designed for extremely high-speed travel beyond 420 km/h. The Air Curtains installed at the car’s front corners guide excess pressure developing at the front air inlets towards the sides of the hyper sports car.
“At the same time, air outlets on the wheel arch and directly behind the front wheels dissipate excess pressure from the wheel arch, creating a slight amount of negative lift at the front to reduce the drag. Modifications are also very prominent at the rear. The longer rear end, the so-called Longtail, allows the laminar flow to pass over the vehicle for longer to thus reduce the aerodynamic stall by over 40 percent.
“Thanks to a modified exhaust tailpipe configuration, the diffuser in the centre of the rear end can almost generate a sufficient amount of negative lift by itself, meaning that the wing can consequently remain retracted in Top Speed mode. As a result, the drag at the rear has been improved even more as negative lift generated by wings and spoilers would otherwise contribute to the drag.”
The Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+ hit 304.773 mph on August 2nd, 2019
On August 2nd, 2019, Le Mans winner and Bugatti test driver Andy Wallace piloted the Chiron Super Sport 300+ to a top speed of 304.773 mph. The run was held at Volkswagen’s Ehra-Lessien test track in Germany and witnessed by a representative from the Guinness Book of World Records.
Just 30 Super Sport 300+ were produced at a price of $3.8 million
The first Chiron Super Sport 300+ was delivered in October of 2021, while the last was delivered in July of 2022. Each car was set at a price of about $3.8 million.
Yes, the Bugatti Bolide may be faster than the Super Sport 300+
With 1,825 hp and 1,364 lb-ft of torque on tap, the ultra-limited Bugatti Bolide has a claimed top speed “well above” 311 mph, according to the manufacturer. However, that claim was made regarding the Bolide prototype and was never verified by an independent source. The car that eventually rolled off the production line has an electronically limited top speed of just 236 mph—well shy of the mythical high mark set by the 300+.
