Bugatti Chiron Smashes Through ‘Inconceivable’ Speed Record

Blink and you’ll miss it. 

A pre-production version of the Bugatti Chiron smashed through the 300-mile-per-hour speed barrier last month, setting a world record. 

The car topped out at 304.77mph during the Aug. 2 run at a test track at Ehra-Lessien, Germany.

The Chiron is a street-legal vehicle produced for sale — starting at just under $3 million — but the one that broke the record was heavily modified, according to German broadcaster Deutsche Welle

An incredible speed,” test driver and Le Mans winner Andy Wallace, who drove the vehicle, said in a news release. “It’s inconceivable that a car would be capable of this.”

The run wasn’t without its tense moments. 

Wallace told Car and Driver of a spot where resurfaced track switches to the old pavement. 

“I got to calling this ‘the jump,’” he said. It’s a bump that you’d barely notice in a normal car, but at those speeds it feels huge . . . If you go over that and land and there’s a bit of a sidewind, then you can lose feeling and suddenly lose confidence.”

Bugatti said this is its swan song for speed records and the company won’t attempt to top this one. 

“We have shown several times that we build the fastest cars in the world,” Stephan Winkelmann, president of Bugatti, said in a news release. “In future we will focus on other areas.”

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