Argot Navis

I've been interested in the Bugatti Veyron for some time now, but this is somehow the first time I've actually managed to see one in action. Top Gear's James May apparently managed to take it up to its top speed of 253 miles per hour. Of course, such a speed makes it the fastest street-legal production car in the world . . . you know, for situations where you need a car that is both street-legal and capable of 250+ MPH. My interest in it, of course, is the Volkswagen-derivedness of its massive 8 liter, quad turbocharged (not that quad turbos are anything new for Bugatti. The EB110 of the early to mid-'90s used a quad-turbocharged V12, although it only managed a measly 540 HP) W16 engine, producing somewhere in the neighborhood of 1001 HP — a nice, low number. The W16 is, unlike the rather strange, three-banked W18 of the Veyron concept, pretty similar to the “let's stick two VR6s together” W12 engine of the VW Phaeton (among others), which is also pretty similar to the W8 formerly available in the Passat. Anyway, watch the damn thing. It's pretty impressive, if nothing else.