Yahoo Finance Why the Bugatti Chiron Is As Impressive Now as It Was in 2016
Butch Leitzinger is brave. He's driving a Bugatti Chiron next to misfiring Econolines and belching Peterbilts trudging into New York City. I warned him days earlier, before we left Miller Motorcars in Greenwich, to avoid Interstate 95. Over the Connecticut border, an unsavory patchwork of broken concrete and rutted asphalt pollutes the entire stretch into the city. Assholes in Acuras bob and weave across three lanes, and often both shoulders. I shield my 26-year-old Volvo from this hellscape, and if I cannot avoid it, I sacrifice a press car. The Chiron Super Sport is a $4.3 million press car.
"It'll be fine," he says in the showroom. "It's a road car."
Butch knows bad traffic. In the Nineties and Aughts, he raced at Watkins Glen and Sonoma as a NASCAR road-course ringer, the guy teams hire to turn left and right. He helped Bentley earn two class wins at Le Mans and won the 24 Hours of Daytona three times. Buying seat time with Butch means either you're a race-team manager looking for a hotshoe or about to gain access to a new Bugatti.
Since the Veyron launched 19 years ago, Butch has driven Bugattis with people who are close but not totally convinced that buying the world's fastest production car is for them. Bugatti flies him around the country, no matter how far that is from its 13 North American dealerships, to get a good night's sleep. The next morning, Butch dons a crisp polo with pressed trousers, shakes a few hands, lets a total stranger pilot a 1600-hp car, and by afternoon, enough cash to purchase a Manhattan studio apartment (or a nice Kentucky horse farm) is wired to France.
Butch is the man who brings masters of the universe down to earth and puts them into a Bugatti.
Parking at Miller Motorcars is like walking into Harry Winston with diamonds scattered all over the floor. Look too long at that Aston Martin DBS and you'll step over a Pagani Zonda. Like any high-end store, the main attractions that bring folks in the front are buried in back. It's where art galleries display the Monets.
I live a half-hour from one of the world's 34 Bugatti dealerships, but Greenwich, Connecticut, is a New England town, not an Emirate. Two Chirons take up the width of the showroom, which has all the trappings of every nice Marriott ever. There are binders on a few simple shelves and tables and a couple framed photos on the walls. No one comes here to be impressed. They come to sign and drive.
This is my first, last, and only chance to experience a quad-turbocharged W-16 before Bugatti replaces it with a quad-turbocharged V-16 hybrid. At the end of the Chiron's 500-car run, after so many celebrities and car journalists have already driven one, I am doing my damnedest to keep cool around the Chiron and the racer who has sprayed champagne at Le Mans. When Butch points to the button for the front lift, all I see from the passenger's seat is the speedometer zone that starts with 210. Today, maybe.
I came here for two experiences: a launch from a dead stop, which Butch demonstrates on an empty on-ramp, and midrange acceleration. The launch is admirable. I cannot physically unpeel myself from the car's accelerative force on my body, which from zero to 60 mph is 50 percent greater than the Earth's gravity. The force abates only when Butch lets off the throttle and the four turbos cut their vociferous ingestion of cold air. Incredible? Yes. But not unmatched amid Plaids, Sapphires, and 911 Turbos.
The Chiron has a low heart rate at legal highway speeds. It's an extraordinary feat diluted by time and progress. Modern hypercars, electric or gas, drive as easily as the 23 CR-Vs we have passed in the last half-hour.
The next stop is lower Greenwich. I savor this moment because I like to pretend I live in lower Fairfield County. The reality here is that driving a Bugatti says little about net worth. The older couples here in Subaru Crosstreks often have Chiron money. I would be more at home in my Volvo.
We switch seats for the best part of the route, a jaunt up the loneliest and curviest section of the Merritt Parkway. It's a road I memorized as a kindergartner in my mother's Volvo 240; the same road upon which my parents would play car-spotting games. Anything could pop up, and in the span of an hour, something crazy usually did. Today, I am that car in the other lane.
At long last, there is open road. Getting a Chiron to act like a Bugatti requires a heavy, deliberate foot, even with the transmission in S. In the default driving mode, throttle tip-in is laggardly, like a Tacoma. Pedal travel is long before the engine wakes, as preferred when four-wheeling over boulders or when there are four turbos that could spool up by accident. I want this. I floor the Chiron.
A loud induction whoosh and deep bass fill the cabin as the revs climb. The initial downshift is polite and damped, a similar sensation to leaving the ground floor in an express elevator. It is no more dramatic, just a hearty midrange layered over a mild rumble and constant hissing. The view out the windshield is staggering. I feel like the camera mounted on the nose of a Formula 1 car. Fence posts and dashed lane markings blur into solid figures. The Chiron is pulling and gluing itself to the earth. The steering wheel stays firm and unmoved in my hands, which make minute adjustments to keep the Chiron on course. I feel the wheel tingling, but there's no trembling. Lord. When Butch said this was a road car, he meant it. Guiding the Chiron with the pedal down is as easy as one-handing an old Lexus ES in a parking lot. And that is when Butch puts up his hands.
I do not know how fast I was going. How does a driver register speed when a car accelerates as hard on the highway as it does when launching? EVs are best at this since they are dead silent. But even they peter out and wilt when a Bugatti is only getting warm.
This is why, after eight years in production, now that hard launches, symphonic engine sounds, and money-waving have been commoditized by lesser brands, Bugatti stands alone. I have driven the Lamborghini Aventador SVJ, the Ferrari 812 Superfast, and any number of savage supercars for weeks on end. The Chiron is ethereal. In 10 seconds on the Merritt, I understand how Andy Wallace reached 304 in this car. The elevator keeps going up, past the penthouse, past the rooftop, into the sky.
A car-loverHearst Owned
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