Jaw-Dropper: the Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport

It’s the noise. I got into the Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport feeling pretty cynical, wondering how Bugatti could possibly justify charging €200,000 on top of the eye-watering €1.2m it already asks for the standard, closed-roof Veyron for a new convertible that weighs 102kgs more and is a couple of tenths slower to 100km/h. And aren’t open- tops like this purely for poseurs?
And then I pressed the starter button. One of the many astonishing things about the Veyron – alongside the 1001 horsepower, the 407km/h top speed and the 2.7 second 100km/h time – is the way it takes such an extreme power output – way in excess of a modern Formula One car – and puts it into such a docile, driveable, reliable package. But you don’t realize just how well-insulated it is until you start the Grand Sport with the roof off. The engine is unchanged, but now you hear from behind you the constant mechanical hum of that open- air engine’s sixteen cylinders and sixty-four valves working, by some miracle, in perfect synchronicity. Even at town speeds the hum is punctuated by a loud, fierce hissing from the four turbochargers every time you ease the pressure on the throttle. I defy you not to love this noise.