Find out what the Bugatti Chiron is like to really drive

[BLANK_AUDIO] I am gonna start it [UNKNOWN]. Just says "Engine". Not start or stop, just "Engine". Before we go anywhere, I just want say something about this car. Because I know it costs two and a half million pounds. But the thing is always really hard to get across on a video. The thing I can't tell you you know really without you being in here and being able to touch everything. It's just the tactility of everything. It feels like that much money in all of the controls. It might look like this. This is effectively lifted from an R8, albeit machined from one piece of [UNKNOWN] aluminium and all that. But this switch down here, [BLANK_AUDIO] So oily, it's just, you won't feel a switch like it in any other car. [MUSIC] From the vents, to the gear selector, to the stitching on the lever, the Bugatti has a depth of quality to the materials behind each click, slide, push, or rotation that can never be fully conveyed simply by sight alone. You really need to feel it. Consider for a moment a Michelin starred plate of food on a television screen. However beautifully arranged a dish is on a plate and how ever well you think you might know the individual ingredients it's only by actually tasting it. That you can understand the true magic inherent in it. And so it is with the Chiron although however much you like the Buccati I wouldn't advocate licking it. [MUSIC] Who wants a nice drive? Think we're gonna find out. [BLANK_AUDIO]. What I really wanted to get out of driving the [UNKNOWN] today was To discover, not what it's like in a straight line, because everybody's said that, let's face it. It's just impossible to describe just how [UNKNOWN] fast it is. [NOISE] But what I really want to know. Its what this car is like when you find a good piece of back road. With some twists and turns in it. Changes in camber. It could be road. Lucky hidden in the hills not far from the Bugatti factory is the perfect stretch of tarmac. Tricky enough to test the Chiron, yet still just wide enough that it doesn't feel like a speed boat in a swimming pool. But just before you get that, there's one quick detour I want to make. [SOUND] As we're driving the Chiron on the roads around [UNKNOWN], there's one particular place that I wanted to stop [BLANK_AUDIO] Here, this is the memorial to John Gassy. He was killed here testing the 57 seat tank. He just won the mall in 1939. And this is the account 11th of August 1939. At the end of the day, the series of tests are over. Mr. Jean and his mechanic, Robert, get out of the car and smoke a cigarette. Suddenly Jean says, wait a minute. I'm just going to drive up and down again. Robert, watch how the car behaves over this bump. Jean turns at the [UNKNOWN] crossroads. Speeds the car up into a furious acceleration and tops 200 kilometers an hour. Suddenly, a cyclist pedals out from a mud track. Trying to avoid him, Jean crashes into a tree on the right-hand side of the road. The car literally explodes, leaving Jean no chance for survival. It was very tragic, and to be honest, Biotti[?] never recovered from this. At the time John had taken over pretty much the day to day running and business in total from [UNKNOWN] his father and some of the most beautiful, iconic cars that Bugatti ever produced, things like the Atlantic which you can still see in the [UNKNOWN] today and that spine down the ridge and the split rear window was John's design Yeah, it's a nice new place up there the road code straight on in those days. And it seems only appropriate to pay respects the man who gave so much to Bugatti. Poignant pilgrimage made is time to see if the Chiron is a car that Jean and a Tory might have been proud of. [BLANK AUDIO] So we have eb mode which is effectively also married and we go to autobahn mode which gives the car some rake and puts the rear wing up bit and we have the handling mode now that stephens the suspension to relax Access to stability control that adds some weight to staring at another four degrees to that real way and this is a share on in full attack [BLANK AUDIO] [MUSIC] When you really Get off the call. Yes, it's true. It's so hard to treat the corners and now the breaking is just superb You need to get the car Into the corners, he's obviously got a lot of weight behind you, but it's actually really well controlled. So it doesn't feel like you've got a big old rucksack on your back. You need to be patient with us rocking want to get the nose to the corner and then actually back on sort of building a boost through the corner. Derek has beautiful way to it. Do you want to be on the power early in the corner? Then you unleash it the second question that I really wanted was answers. How does this differ from a Veyron? Is it just a tweaked version of the old car?. [SOUND] And the biggest difference for me is in the corners. Because they run. You never really felt like you wanted to push it in the corners or lean on the tires too much because you felt like you really wouldn't know what was going on. This is so much better. It actually feels encouraging when you turn in you can feel the front More importantly you can feel the rear of the car seat feel like you can manage the way to Casey going downhill and the trail break into corners. Yes you feel the weight trying to overtake you a bit but you can manage it. Right happens it fails like A lighter car than I'd imagined. It really changes direction, [SOUND] belying its two-tons. The steering weight is absolutely spot-on. And you can, as you get it moving a little bit on the [INAUDIBLE] corners even, which is not something I expected at all, it's got that very definite sort of agile four-wheel drive, While driving. [SOUND] I like this bit on the outside of the wheel. Grooving through the campus in a way that it disguises its way. It's not intrusive, it's not fidgety at all, far from it, the change in the tire waves compared to Avalon, so I got two 85s in the front 355 so the rare that's larger the front but smaller the rare that before to give it finally points you're feeling you really do feel that? Yes You have to wait it got to get back on the front row before you really get into the corners use of breaks, get the nose in. And then joy all Huge power! [NOISE] In some ways, dynamically, it feels like a sorta monstrous, incredible hulk version of an Audi R 8 No, it can't disguise it's weight entirely. But once you've seen the size of the monsters engine and gearbox, you understand why it weighs a whisker under two tons. And you also wonder how it manages to disguise that mass as well as it does. It's also worth remembering that the shear on was 300 kilos lighter, it simply wouldn't be as quick. As it wouldn't be able to deploy or it's power so effectively. I remember exactly the same argument being put forward by the engineers of the R35 Nissan GTR, another heavy but stunningly effective car. There were already two things that I wanted to get out of today I suppose, I wanted to find out what Sherum was like. On a tight twisty road. Not just a fast straight one. Which is where everyone really sees it and I also wanted to find out how different it is to the [UNKNOWN]. And in many ways those two things are very much interconnected because I think the biggest difference really is how the car feels on those roads. The [UNKNOWN] are always better I think the people Actually ever gave you credit for that interesting piece of road but, felt that you wanted to push it to the limits of its ties. It was capable of fast. But it wasn't necessarily that interactive. This is a very different proposition. You can really Hustle it, the ability to turn into a downhill corner that feels bit off [UNKNOWN] car just got slightly out of shape, or to be on the [UNKNOWN] early waking up those turbos. And you do have to get on there just a bit early but it's not instantaneous And then ride the power out and feel that outside rear wheel just over rotating a little bit is extraordinary. And, yeah, the connection with the tires in the Chiron is much greater through the steering and through, through your backside, through the seat. [UNKNOWN]. The Chiron's ability to do over 260 miles an hour is what defines so much of this car, its status, its allure, its physical properties, and people's perception that it is a one-trick pony. And it's that last point that I wanted to get to the bottom of while I hit some more than decent numbers in the show. I didn't get anywhere near that incredible top speed during my time with it. And I suppose, the big question is, did I come away feeling like I'd missed out as a result? If you don't experience that big straight line figure, if you take it to a more conventional performance car playground and judge it by parameters that ignore that headline number, does it still thrill? [MUSIC] I'm impressed. The Alta, absolutely.