Though unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show in 2001, it took another four years of fine-tuning before the massively complex Bugatti Veyron 16.4 was ready for "public consumption." We revisit this marvel of a car on a sunset drive in the Winelands.
Words: Wilhelm Lutjeharms
Thank you note:
Special thanks to The Archive (thearchive.co.za) for making this drive possible.
If you dig really deep into the Veyron's history, it becomes evident that the genesis of this car can be traced back all the way to shortly after World War II. In his book Faster, Higher, Farther, Jack Ewing’s in-depth writing covers the inside story of the Volkswagen "Dieselgate scandal". Naturally, throughout the book, the late Ferdinand Piëch is mentioned, also casting a light on his early life as a child. Piëch, of course, is regarded as the "father" of the Veyron...
Already in 1942 during the war (at the age of five), he would walk around in the VW factory, get to experience the environment and start to shift the gears of the unsynchronised gearboxes of the cars of that era. He was not even in school yet but admitted to his mother in the early '40s that he would like to be hands-on and work in a factory with the various machines. This strong will remained throughout his career and under his guiding hand the Veyron became, without a doubt, one of the pinnacles of the motoring world when VW decided to revive the Bugatti brand. Piëch studied engineering and was eventually responsible for some of the most significant road and race cars in the industry.
As Ewing states, when the Veyron first saw the light of day in 2005, it was “in the spirit of Ettore Bugatti, fabulously expensive and ridiculously overpowered.” For a petrolhead the latter statement is debatable. The idea of the Veyron came about, as many ideas, following a rough drawing on a piece of paper. It was 1997 and Piëch and VW’s head of powertrain development Karl-Heiz Neumann were on the “Shinkansen” express (bullet) train between Tokyo and Nagoya. Piëch had this idea of an 18-cylinder engine and made the drawing. It would eventually take four concept models, but in 2001 Bugatti announced that the Veyron would go into series production.
Long gestation period
Incidentally I attended the 2001 Frankfurt Motor Show and remember seeing the Veyron on the stand, and more importantly, the drivetrain was on a display on its own. It was massive. There were numerous challenges along the way. Keeping the car as compact as possible, as stable as possible at high speed and as light as possible were just some of the problems, not to mention the complex all-wheel drive system.
Of course, the Chiron has come along and has upped the ante to new levels in many ways. But whether you can afford it or not, several enthusiasts still prefer the Veyron – it will always be the "original" hypercar.
This particular Veyron stands out from the crowd like few other cars, particularly so because of its traditional, typically Bugatti, paint scheme. After all, there are only three Veyrons in the country and most of them are usually tucked away and rarely seen on the road.
Franschhoek is in the heart of the Winelands and the area has some of the best driving roads in the world. These roads are known not only for their high-quality surface, but also for the visual excitement they offer. One of them is the Franschhoek Mountain Pass, a twisting piece of tarmac that snakes up a mountain in true Alpine fashion followed by long stretches of flat road when you leave the mountain behind. Interestingly, during its development phase, the Veyron was sent to South Africa for testing. VW has a massive, relatively secretive, test facility out in the Northern Cape, so to fine-tune one of their high-speed vehicles here made complete sense.
Behind the wheel
Before the late afternoon light fades, perfectly capturing the Veyron’s lines on camera, the key is handed to me. As expected, the car looks hunkered down. I keep thinking, now as I walk to the car and also later during the afternoon, about the smooth, "unfussy" design of this car. Take any modern hypercar and the number of winglets, aero inlets and outlets, as well all the other body addenda demand much of your attention. This is not the case with the Veyron.
There is, of course, the iconic horseshoe grille in the front, a large cut-out into the bodywork behind the front wheels and the intakes behind the doors. Both the latter items are optically hidden thanks to the black paintwork. However, at the rear of the car things do get interesting. At high speeds, or when braking from high speeds, a massive two-plane rear wing is deployed.
However, it is still a very sinuous design and when the wing is lowered the Veyron offers one of the purest rear quarters of any hypercar – or just any car, period. When parked, the wing can still be deployed and left in that position. This is actually then a perfect opportunity to look at what's hidden underneath it. Now you can see part of the exhaust system and the rear end of that massive engine.
The brushed air intakes above the engine that peek out every so slightly above the roofline is another design necessity, but it completely flows with the design of the car and is beautifully integrated into the body. Even the side mirrors don’t extend outward past the car’s body as on other cars – another bit of clever design and an aerodynamic feature.
A highlight is seeing the “open” engine which is neatly on display. Peering in a little deeper you can’t help but wonder how the engineers were able to fit this drivetrain into such a relatively small footprint – calling it a triumph of engineering is an understatement!
The cabin
The door handle is polished metal and as I drop into the low seating position a few things immediately draw my attention. Firstly, I'm struck by just how luxurious but at the same time homogenous and elegant the cabin is. The two-tone navy blue and cream interior gives a clean and relaxing aura, quite the opposite to the driving experience this car offers! There is no big information screen, just the controls required for the air-conditioning, a leather-wrapped gearlever and two stalks on the steering column. Finally, a steering wheel with no buttons... Needless to say, it is truly a pleasant place and quite "refreshing" compared with several modern supercars.
There is nothing to distract your attention from the driving experience. Behind the steering wheel is a large analogue rev counter, to the right the smaller speedometer (with an even smaller digital display) and a few other displays for interesting bits of info (such as the power indicator on the left with its needle that swings around the clock to 1 000, should you press the throttle to the floor and hold on)!
The experience
Twist the key, then press the starter button below the gearlever. The starter motor whirrs a few times and then the engines catches. At first, I’m surprised by how quiet it is, although it is a rather deep rumble. However, later on I would realise that the deep exhaust note is more audible to those listening from outside. The driver's seat is comfortable, but definitely more on the firm and supportive side. That said, you should be able to spend a good few hours in it without feeling any discomfort.
I push the gearlever to the right to select drive and move off. Within a few metres I realise how planted the car feels and how stiff the suspension is. It is to be expected of course: this is a 1 900 kg (official figure is 1 888 kg) car that must be able to handle a plethora of forces up to 400 km/h. This is no cushy GT, it is a focused hypercar – especially if you consider what it represented almost two decades ago.
The smallest of throttle inputs reminds you that there are four (!) turbochargers in the rear. There is some whistling from them, but less so than in a modern Pagani Huayra for example. It still offers a very high level of sophistication and clearly the idea was to not allow too much noise to enter the cabin.
You sit pretty much on the floorpan of the car which means you are very close to the road. Still, I have a perfect view over the first part of the black bonnet, while I can see the blue fenders as well. As the nose of the car is very short, you know the front wheels are close to your feet, which makes it easy to place the car through corners. A bulky and cumbersome machine it is not.
As the Veyron had already been driven before the shoot, all the fluids are already warmed up and the time has come to experience its performance. I decide to push the gearlever again to activate Sport mode and at the same time use the pedals on the steering wheel to change gears myself. This gives you more control over the engine, allowing you to get a better feel for the performance.
The steering is light but precise and as I dive through a few corners, the lightness of the steering system allows me to focus on other aspects of the car. I thought the weight of car would be very noticeable, but that is not the case. Even when pressing the brake pedal, the massive (8-cylinder, 400 mm up front!) rotors and discs not only give good pedal feel, but lower the speed decisively.
At 2 000 rpm in fifth gear, I press the throttle pedal and you can feel a storm building deep down behind you. There is a seemingly relentless surge of glorious torque. I select a couple of lower gears, and press the throttle down further. Within a split second the engine reacts and the deep burble from the engine stays in the cabin throughout the rev range.
The red line is just after 6 000 rpm, but that is nearly irrelevant. It doesn’t matter where in the rev range you find yourself, there is always a copious amount of torque (and, to an extent, power) on offer. When you switch to the next gear it simply continues, and then as quickly as it has gone through the rev range (obviously not as rev-happy as a smaller, naturally-aspirated performance engine) it is highly likely that you would have reached the end of your straight piece of road anyways...
I happen to find myself on a bit of a straight, with a clear stretch in front of me and no traffic. Within seconds I’m deep into thee-figure speeds. As impressive as the acceleration is, it is how stable the Veyron feels at these speeds that impresses most. Keep its age in mind and the fact that several other modern high-performance cars dance around ever so slightly at these speeds, means the Veyron just keeps adding feathers to its performance cap.
As you are always aware of how fast it is, the car does entice you to see how much you can eke out of it during these straight-road blasts. But it's not a one-trick pony. It might be on the heavy side, but fitted with incredibly wide (265 at the front, and 365 at the rear) tyres, as well as a clever all-wheel drive system, it has huge grip and traction to help in the corners.
You rarely have to look in your rear-view mirror, but when you do, it would rather be to appreciate the view over the metal covers of the masterpiece that is the 16-cylinder, 8-litre, quad-turbo engine.
For a moment I think about the Veyron’s weight. Back in the mid-2000s, 1 888 kg (kerb weight) was rather heavy for a sports car. How times have changed. Today a BMW M3 Sedan tips the scales at 1 840 kg. In that sense, as in several other ways, history has been kind to the Veyron.
I squeeze the throttle a few more times and start to giggle, this is really otherworldly performance. Even today, but especially two decades ago, this was engineering on another level, and keeping such a special car on the road is likely to cost the same as a small boat. Indeed, another owner (and several online resources) confirm that you have to have deep pockets to keep a Veyron in the stable...
The end
Before I exit, I adjust the seat back to its original position – you do so with a mechanical lever underneath the seat. That might seem trivial, but it illustrates that Bugatti still wanted to keep the weight as low as possible for obvious reasons. The same is the case for the level of luxury in the car. It is luxurious, but if you want the most luxurious car on the planet you will need to look elsewhere. However, if you want to experience one of the pinnacles of automotive performance, and an all-round engineering marvel which had many very clever engineers scratching their heads for quite a few years, the Bugatti Veyron must be at the top of your list.