Car of the Day - Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport

Car of the Day - Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport

See also related -- Bugatti Veyron - Prototype and Early Production -- for further details and technical illustrations

Bugatti presented the Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport at the 2008 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance where they donated the very first example to be auctioned for charity The sale was handled by Gooding & Co. and successfully made $2.9 million a generous $800,000 donation over list for the lucky purchaser..

With a limited to a production run of 150 the Grand Sport, Bugatti have offered the first 50 to existing Bugatti owners.

Cutting the roof out of a 400 kmph plus car is not an undertaking to be taken lightly. The engineering involved in providing enough strength and rigidity to the monocoque when breaking the closed circle between the A and the B-Pillars means significant changes to the basic underlying structure. Bugatti handled this by adding reinforcement to the side skirts and the transmission tunnel, effectively strengthening them as beams. The B-pillars were cross-stiffened using a carbon fibre support, and a central carbon plate was added beneath the transmission tunnel to remove torsional flexing.

The doors become a structural component as well. The carbon fibre door frame houses an integrated longitudinal beam that in the event of an accident transfers the load from the A to the B-pillar acting as both a brace and a channel to further dissipate impact energy. The redesigned air intakes have received a 10-centimetre wide carbon-fibre re-enforcement and now double as a roll-bar.

Weight for the Grand Sport is quoted by Bugatti at 1990 kg, a 102 kg premium on the original Veyron. Not that it matters much as the Bugatti engineers have been constantly refining and improving through the production run. The current performance figures are outstanding. The Grand Sport can reach 407 km/h with the roof in place and 360 km/h with it removed. As there is no onboard storage for the polycarbonate roof panel, there is always the umbrella stored in the luggage compartment, an original and intriguing solution when caught out in the wet. It is also a successful solution as you can still hurry home at 100 mph with the umbrella in place.

0 to 100 km/h remains ridiculously awesome at 2.5 ish seconds. Bugatti is rightly proud of the acceleration figures but even more so of the de-acceleration capability of the Grand Sport with a mere 10 seconds to go from 407 to a full standstill and 100 km/h to 0 in just 32 metres..These phenomenal figures are achieved with carbon-ceramic brake discs with interior ventilation, eight-piston monoblock caliper units in the front, and six-piston caliper units in the rear. At speeds exceeding 200 km/h, the rear spoiler serves as additional air brake. Activated by the brake pedal, the spoiler shoots up and is deployed at a 55-degree angle in less than 0.4 seconds.

Bugatti has taken the already unbelievable Veyron and added open top appeal and somehow managed to not only maintain performance but in numerous areas improve it.

Rod Halligan