Bugatti Chiron: High-speed beauty

Thar she blows! Meet the Bugatti Chiron.

The Veyron's successor needs to be some car to top it.

Thankfully, it is. It's got 1,500 horses running out of an 8.0-liter, quadruple-turbo W-16 engine.

Want carbon fiber? You got it!

Its engine is suitably huge.

As are its brakes.

Compared to the Veyron, the turbos are 69 percent bigger. That's...big.

But if you want 300 more horses than the Veyron, you're gonna need more grunt.

It's safe to say the Chiron is stunning to look at. See that curve? It's called the Bugatti Line, and it mimics the 'E' from Ettore Bugatti's signature.

Once you've reached the head of the queue, it takes five months to have your Chiron built.

Three months to get all the parts to the Atelier, and two more to build it.

To save weight, many components are now carbon fiber.

Each car is hand built, as you'd expect.

Painstaingly hand built.

But the results are worth it.

The Atelier at Bugatti's HQ had to be redesigned for Chiron.

It's a vastly different car from its predecessor.

Though the engine seems similar, it's pretty different.

There are six tail pipes on Chiron -- four you can see, and two more you can't.

The immense power generated by the car meant Bugatti needed to strip out and replace its rolling road test bed.

This looks strange, huh? It sits behind the front brakes and aids cooling.

Speaking of brakes, here's a caliper.

So much work has gone in to making the Chiron not a racer for the road, but simply...the best car.

This wasn't its original face though...

Here's a concept drawing.

Initial designs were all about being open. Quite imposing, huh?

This front didn't make it past the board...

...the rear did, though.

Cold air goes in...warm air comes out.

Pretty engine is pretty.

And massive. Truly, truly huge.

Here's a sketch of the speedo. It's surrounded by digital displays, but the thing that shows your speed is analog. Good.

These notebooks contain years worth of technical and design notes. Marrying the two together, showing adjustments made of the Chiron's development.

As rear lights go...

In the Atelier, there's a model of each Veyron made -- exactly to spec. Bugatti will do the same with Chiron.

How much do you want to hold one of these in your hands?

Even the wheels are stunning.