Here is the Skinny on the Bugatti Chiron

Automologist MAC is under pressure to get this car...by his sons. Happy Father's Day, MAC.

In my household, there is but one car that should be parked in the carport, according to my two sons that is. That car is of course the Bugatti Chiron.

“Why is that?” I often ask, to which the answer comes “Coz it is the fastest in the world, Daddy”.

So, here it is, some quick facts about the Bugatti Chiron…just so my kids know that I am a cool daddy after all.

The Chiron is arguably the fastest production car in the world. In theory, the Chiron has a top speed of about 480 kph, but in the interest of safety, this is limited to 420 kph; the speedo goes up to 500 kph though. The car is the follow-on from the Veyron and was named after legendary race driver, Louis Chiron, who lived from 1899 until 1979:

The man, the legend

Power comes from a W16 engine, which is like having two V8’s strapped to each other in a W format. It is capable of producing 1,479 bhp and 1,180 lb-ft of torque, which is rather a lot, and will power the Chiron to 100 kph in about 2.5 seconds and up to 200 kph in mere 6.5 seconds. If that is not enough, then you can go on to 300 kph from a standing start in just 13.6 seconds. The actual displacement is eight litres and the engine is covered by ten radiators that require three water pumps to circulate all that water to keep it cool.

The car has a total of four turbo chargers and 32 fuel injectors, which enable it to consume its entire tank of 100 litres in just seven minutes. IF that is not impressive enough, it sucks in up to 60,000 litres of air a minute - to give you an indication, the average person has just a six-litre lung capacity. Officially, the fuel economy figures rates it at 35 litres per hundred kilometres, but I bet no one ever achieves those sort of numbers.

Getting all that power down to the seven-speed gearbox in any of the five drive modes means that the Chiron has the largest clutch of any road car, ever. It is also a four-wheel-drive car and weighs in at just 1,995 kilos. The tyres are specially engineered to withstand 3,800G, which sounds like a lot to me.

One of the drive modes is the ‘lift mode', which actually lifts the suspension for those times when you just want to go slow. Then there is the autobahn mode for comfy cruising and the range-topping ‘top-speed’ mode that needs an extra key to activate it, but like I mentioned above, you only get seven minutes of this before you have to refuel. Of course, if you cannot decide which is best, then you can leave it in ‘auto mode’ and the car will decide.

The Chiron has six exhausts that are configured to form a blown diffuser, and keeping the exhaust fumes breathable is achieved by having six catalytic converters that can scrub 230,266 square metres, and all in a car in which the boot can hold just 44 litres of luggage. If you have a spot of bother with the car, Bugatti will have a team of ‘Flying Doctors’ sent out to you who are capable of servicing the car anywhere in the world, apparently.

There will only be 500 Chiron's made and if you want one, you had better hurry as the order book was already half full as of April 2017.

Before: the Veyron.....After: the Chiron