Bay Area Bugatti Veyron Joy Ride, 1001hp in Silicon Valley, CA
Posted on Fri, Sep 10, 2010 @ 07:22 PM
As an adult, there aren't too many things that get your blood pumping, your heart racing or that gives you a grin so wide your cheeks hurt yet it's impossible to stop smiling. 
24hrs after my $1.8 million joy ride though the South San Francisco Bay area in the red & black Bugatti Veyron shown above....I'm still smiling.
Bugatti is estimated to sell roughly 30 16.4 liter, 1001hp Veyrons world wide in 2010 to the super elite who can both afford the average $1.8 million dollar price tag and appreciate the extreme power, beauty and engineering that embodies a Bugatti. When a qualified prospect contacts us as a franchised Bugatti dealer and wishes to drive one, we arrange to have a professional Bugatti trained track/road test driver brought in with a car to take our prospect out for a lesson and a test drive.
Last week Bugatti left a Veyron "demo" at our store from a scheduled road test and after a bit of convincing, I was given the green light to drive it. After a quick tutorial on the cars adjustable suspension and 7-spd, dual-clutch, paddle shiftable transmission I was having difficulty buckling my seatbelt as my nerves were causing a slight tremble in my hand. After a relaxing deep breath, I put the Veyron in to gear and was off. One of the first things you notice when driving the Veyron is the flattened accelerator that lies nearly 4 inches lower than the break pedal designed to give the driver better control of the immense power at will. I was willing to to test that control. There are not many places outside of a track where you can test a car with a top speed of 280mph so I took a chance and jumped on highway 85 in Los Gatos. I saw the fast lane clear out when the traffic in front of me saw what was coming, so I dropped to 3rd gear and went so fast the blood literally rushed out of my legs and my feet went numb. I could hear the engine's almost erotic rumble and got a rush I didn't think was possible after being in the high end car business for so many years and driving all of the best cars. 2 cars pinned me in and slowed me down to 70mph and just before I got angry I saw a CHP officer parked on the side of the road. Lucky? Absolutely. I waived them off with a thank you and exited the freeway.
The Veyron practically idols at 40mph so when I drove through a residential neighborhood on my way to test the Veyron on the winding roads around the Los Gatos mountains I struggled to keep my speed down. Shannon Rd is my road of choice to test a vehicle's true power and handling as there is ever type of situation you could want from straight aways to hair pin turns. The ability to effortless stick to the road on tight turns at high speeds was impressive and due to the nearly 15" wide custom Michelin tires that cost a whopping $36,000 to replace. I cruised through Los Gatos 30 miles later and was amazed how many people were willing to stop traffic and walk in front of the Veyron in the street to take pictures. Pulling in to the driveway of our dealership and in to our secure storage lot I was on an amazing high that only $1.8 million could buy.