The Chiron Would Have Hit 320mph In Nevada, Bugatti Says
As if beating the Koenigsegg Agera RS by 20mph wasn’t enough, Bugatti has decided to tell the world its modified Chiron could have gone even quicker.
The Swedish hypercar hasn’t been named specifically, but it’s clearly alluded to in a press release that’s best thought of as a way of saying ‘so ner’ with some hardcore maths.
VW Group’s 13-mile Ehra-Lessien test track is just 50 metres above sea level, making it less ideal for high-speed runs than “higher-altitude locations used for high-speed runs in the past such as in Nevada,” Bugatti says.
It’s all about air pressure. This drops by one hectopascal (hPa) every eight metres, so at an altitude of 1000 metres, the air pressure is about 88 per cent of what is experienced at sea level. Lower air pressure and air density result in lower drag, hence why airliners fly at such high altitudes.
The faster you go, the bigger a problem ‘thicker’ air becomes. Bugatti has crunched the numbers and worked out that had the Chiron been run at a higher altitude in thinner air, it would have gone 15.5mph faster. This would have given a final total of 320mph or 515kmh.
So why not ship the longtail Chiron to Nevada instead of using Ehra-Lessien? It’s all about safety. The VW test site is lined with Armco, has emergency service personnel stationed either end and is cleaned with a special ‘mat’ before every run.
“The route in Nevada is very long and only goes in one direction: security forces would have taken too long to get to the scene in an emergency,” said Bugatti development chief Stefan Ellrott, adding, “The track has a slight gradient of about three per cent. It wouldn’t have felt right to set a record there.”
As a final two-finger salute to its 300mph-targeting competitors, Bugatti has decided it’s done with top speed-related feats. “We have shown several times that we build the fastest cars in the world. In future we shall be focusing on other exciting projects,” announced Bugatti president Stephan Winkelmann.
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
Okay claiming it will do 320mph is one thing, the proof is in the pudding so why dont you take it out to Nevada and prove it
It says it in the article - “It’s all about safety.”. Whether this is some clever excuse to not go to Nevada is all but a mystery for everyone outside of Bugatti.
Yeah and lose control and die like that one top speed tester a few weeks ago, it’s all about safety, Nevada is unpredictable
I don’t see why everyone is making fuss about this. This is a modified car, not a road legal production one, so 300 mph really wasn’t breached at all.
You know just as well as any other it will be a production model, they just wanted to test it to create hype before making the production models.
Dude, someone made a car that is proper fast and you can’t afford. Live with it, no need to get all salty.
I think that the media and everyone else should STOP calling it a “modified Chiron” and call it for what it actually is, the prototype for the Chiron Super Sport, still isn’t in production but it will be, is not rocket science to know what it actually is.
Ikr lol
The tyres aren’t road legal
then why not run thete in the first place
Oh yeah, and i can do 300 in my civic with a few simple mods
The road is there. I think that they should let koenigsegg use the nardo ring.
“The track has a slight gradient of about three per cent. It wouldn’t have felt right to set a record there.”
Good thing for Koenigsegg they ran it in two directions rather than one like Bugatti. And I doubt the tyres would’ve lasted on a bumpy road given that they had to gut the car and strip the aero in order to make em last on Ehra.
Bugatti is not doing themselves any favors here.
They just straightpiped the car for free horsepower, it would never pass any production car emissions test. It haa bunch of computers where the passenger seat would be so it definitely wouldn’t pass crash test. It has an effing rollcage. It most definitely has non-street legal tyres, and if they’re somehow street legal the car will be unusable in any type of corner because of how soft they’ll need to be and because they removed the little downforce it had to begin with. This could never be a production car and it isn’t the first street legal car to pass 300mph either. They didn’t have guinness present and they only did a one-way run. Koenigsegg had a 5mph difference in their two runs because of the wind so bugatti may not even have reached 300mph if it wasn’t for the rules-breaking. It also seems sketchy to not announce a car at the same time as they announced this and wait a month and not even do a verified run. And then they say they’re not interested in hunting top speeds anymore! There’s probably not a special edition coming, and if there is, it won’t be anywhere as fast as this and will just be a cashgrab. This was a cheap pr stunt by bugatti because they knew the production chiron would never go 300+. But they knew they could fool the dumb media and their fanboys and get non-deserved good press from this.
I challenge anyone who reads this to explain why any of my points are not valid in a non-toxic, reasonable way.
Because 300mph is clearly inadequate