Possibly the world’s fastest convertible is the recently revealed 2012 Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse that will make its official debut at the Geneva Motor Show. The vehicle is essentially what you get when you combine the open top body of the Veyron Grand Sport with the powerful 183bhp powertrain of the Veyron Super Sport.
As for the name, Vitesse means ‘Speed’ in French and it’s a much more interesting name than the Grand Sport and Super Sport. As for what the name reflects in its performance, the Vitesse has an 8.0-litre engine, with the cubic capacity split between 16 cylinders (in a ‘W’ formation) and fed air by four turbochargers, hence the 16.4 moniker. The Vitesse has also had the same tweaks as the Super Sport which means enlarged turbochargers, bigger intercoolers, a modified chassis to handle the extra power and new front and rear bumpers as part of a tweaked aerodynamic package.
Bugatti president Wolfgang Dürheimer said that ‘The rapid success of the Super Sport convinced us to increase the performance of the Bugatti roadster. Once again our engineers worked hard to demonstrate that Bugatti is able to constantly redefine the boundaries of what is technically feasible. We gave our all to transfer the achievements of the Super Sport over to the Grand Sport, thereby turning open-top driving itself into an extraordinary experience at high speed.”
While Bugatti has yet to release any acceleration or top speed figures for the Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse, the Veyron Super Sport currently holds the world speed record for a road car at 269mph, though it’s limited to 259mph to protect the tyres
Bugatti only built 30 Veyron Super Sports and it is likely that the Vitesse will be even more exclusive.
