Where the Veyron stopped short of 1200bhp in its final forms, the Chiron ups that to nearly 1500. Where the Veyron used aluminium spaceframe construction, the Chiron has a lighter carbonfibre monocoque. But it couldn’t and wouldn’t be regarded as the ultimate performance car forever.Įnter, in 2016, the Chiron. The W16-engined, 987bhp, four-wheel-drive Veyron broke through the 250mph barrier. The Volkswagen Group’s trophy brand, Bugatti, made history when it gave us the fastest production car in the world in 2005. Mike’s prototype drive revealed a car that struggles to feel dramatic when launching from low speeds, but that piles on speed beyond three-figures with an unrelenting potency, and whose handling feels as balanced and poised as you’d expect of a Lotus despite its all-wheel drive layout. Its 70kWh drive battery and quartet of drive motors make it weigh some 1700kg but it also develops some two-thousand metric horsepower at peak, runs on Pirelli P-Zero Trofeo R tyres, and it’s claimed to be capable of 0-186mph in just nine seconds (more than four seconds quicker than Bugatti’s sensational Chiron can do it). And the only example we’ve yet to do any more than ride in is the awesome Lotus Evija, which our man Mike Duff drove in prototype form around Lotus’s own test track at Hethel.Įlectric or not, this car’s key vital statistics leave nothing to chance.
And although it's less broad-batted and usable than most hypercars of its price, its dedication of the business of going quickly, round in two-and-a-half-mile circles, is utterly spellbinding.Įlectric hypercars will always be contentious when they’re competing with the very high-revving, noisiest, fastest and most dramatic combustion-engined performance cars in the world, but they are undoubtedly in the process of taking this niche by the force of instant, walloping, vectored-per-corner torque. It's a physical test to drive, but a supreme, unforgettable mental treat. The Senna looks after you, and keeps looking after you with its feedback, stability and drivability, as you hit the kinds of speeds only usually known to prototype racing machines. Developing some 800kg of downforce at its peak, and with a growling V8 of just under 800-horsepower, it's a car you expect to be a nerve-testing challenge on track, and almost impossible to drive on the road. Even though its not the most powerful car to have lapped our dry handling circuit, it has such phenomenal reserves of grip that it smashed our dry handling track lap record by fully a second-and-a-half when we road-tested it in 2018. The Senna is a car of truly astonishing track abilities. McLaren resisted the temptation to make the P1 a modern facsimile of the F1, however, instead having a 903bhp hybrid-electric powertrain, a two-seat interior, state-of-the-art suspension technology, lightweight construction and competition-grade aerodynamics to deliver the fastest, most focused and most exciting performance car it could imagine, fit for equally unprecedented thrills on both road and track.
McLaren Automotive’s first ‘Ultimate Series’ car had to follow in the footsteps of the firm’s legendary and celebrated F1, which built the company a worldwide reputation all by itself. The LaFerrari is a monument to everything Ferrari does singularly well and still our reigning hypercar standard-bearer. It made 500 in all, producing the last of them in 2015, and has so far succeeded it only with the FXXK track special and the LaFerrari Aperta convertible. Although we never got the chance to strap our timing gear to one, Ferrari claims the car hurls itself to 62mph in just 2.4sec and to 186mph in just 15sec.Īnd yet, in spite of its enormous performance and mind-boggling mechanical complication, the LaFerrari has absurdly benign and exploitable limit handling manners that make it so much more approachable and exciting to drive on a circuit than you’d ever believe it could be.įerrari charged more than £1million for each car. Powered by an incredible, spine-tingling, naturally aspirated, 789bhp 6.3-litre V12 assisted by 161bhp of electric power channelled direct to the rear wheels, the LaFerrari’s powertrain makes an incredible 950bhp all told.
Autocar confidential: Bentley's first EV, LaFerrari reincarnated and more.
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