This Bugatti Veyron set a world record for the fastest car on a public road.
As famous as the Nurburgring is, Germany’s Autobahn is equally famous for some pretty insane top speeds. The reason for this is simply because there are no speed limits. Everywhere else in the world sets the reasonable expectation of legally limiting a car’s top speed to under 100 mph, with a few exceptions being more than that, but the Autobahn is one o the only places on Earth where you can put pedal to the metal to your heart’s content and not get pulled over by the cops.
This makes the Autobahn an ideal place for setting a speed record. Which is exactly what happened back in 2015 by Bugatti Veyron owner Radim Passer.
By way of Motor1, Passer posted a short documentary of just how he took his Veyron from zero to over 250 mph by rocketing down the Autobahn.
First, you need a fast car. The Bugatti Veyron is undeniably fast, having set a world record on the Nurburgring back in 2010 at 267 mph. Normally the car’s engine limits top speed to 252 mph, but that record attempt removed the limiter.
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Next, you need a calm stretch of road with little to no traffic. The Autobahn might not have any speed limits, but if there’s door-to-door traffic across all lanes then nobody is going fast. Passer scouted out just the right patch of highway that had very little traffic in the early morning for his record attempt, and then set a date shortly after taking delivery of his Veyron.
Unfortunately, technical issues prevented him from activating the Veyron’s top speed mode on two attempts. First, Bugatti said that the outside air was too low, but after the second attempt also failed they took a closer look and realized that the Veyron’s transmission was busted and needed to be replaced.
So Passer set a date at the end of May 2015, during a national holiday and in the wee hours of the morning. At 3:30 AM, he and his team woke up, picked up the Veyron fresh from getting a new transmission from Bugatti, and took it to a lonely stretch of Autobahn. Then they made history.
The speedo only said 390 kph (242 mph), but even on a million dollar hypercar, the speedo isn’t as accurate as GPS. When Passer consulted the GPS speed, he found that on each of his four runs he’d surpassed 400 kph, reaching 402.5 kph on his fastest run (or 250.1 mph).
It’s pretty impressive seeing any car hit that speed on a public highway, but just keep in mind that it took two trips to the mechanic and the absolute perfect conditions to hit that speed. The rest of us will have to be content with 150 mph or so.