2009 Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport First Drive

Bugatti's Olivier Thevenin gestures at us from the passenger seat and we come to a stop on a deserted, arrow-straight road somewhere in Sardinia. His serious look suggests he has something big to say.

"Now," he says. "Use all of the power — really. Then feel the brakes." As his was meant to be the voice of corporate reason during our drive of the 2009 Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport, we could have kissed him.

We floor the throttle and the car simply takes off. Since we've got a quadruple-turbo 8.0-liter W16 behind us that pumps out 986 horsepower and 922 pound-feet of torque, we expect a battle of physics with the Haldex all-wheel-drive system and limited-slip rear differential that should leave the tarmac with emotional scars and end with the car off the road. But instead the Veyron simply leaves the vicinity like a bullet from a sniper's rifle.

The power meter on the instrument panel swings round and just for a second we are godlike, using the full force of the ultimate car.

And now it's got a removable targa-style top.

The Greatest Show on Earth
The engine of the 2009 Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport is just a collection of whistles, whines and whinnies at low speed, but now it suddenly finds its turbocharged W16 lungs and roars next to my head. The 100 km/h (62 mph) mark falls in 2.7 seconds and then 200 km/h (124 mph) arrives in just 7.3 seconds. With every flick of the shift paddles, the seven-speed dual-clutch automated manual transmission punches us forward and the W16 sucks a fresh gulp of air into those perfectly sculpted airboxes above my head.

Were there space, the Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport would blast through 300 km/h (186 mph) in just 16.7 seconds. This is pure, unadulterated power. And with the roof removed and the engine now exposed and nestling right next to the luxuriously trimmed sport seats, it's an even richer experience.

Of course you don't just chop the roof off a 250-mph car. That's why the Veyron's carbon-fiber monocoque has been strengthened by reinforcing the B-pillars, door sills and the transmission tunnel, while there's a structural plate beneath the transmission. The doors are now made from carbon-fiber and a crash-protection beam of aerospace steel lies within. The engine's exposed airboxes are also reinforced so they'll provide rollover protection.

What makes this a convertible is the targa-style transparent polycarbonate roof. You'll also notice the Grand Sport's slightly higher windshield and the LED running lights.

The Car of Our Times
The exposed engine of the Grand Sport means that the one-dimensional mechanical roar of the coupe has been supplanted by a tapestry of W16 noises, as the sound of the fuel injectors and the four turbos join the fray of those perfectly engineered pistons at work. Every fiber of this grand construction that the cynics decried as an act of madness, every moment of the five years of agony that went into creating what could just be the best car of our lifetime, comes to the fore. This isn't just an exhaust note but instead a symphony from Bugatti's quad-turbo masterpiece.

The Grand Sport screams forward at a stupidly fast pace. Well beyond 150 mph and at a point when this is highly inadvisable, we stomp on the middle pedal with all the finesse of a drunken elephant as instructed and send the eight-piston front calipers slamming into 15.7-inch carbon-ceramic front brake discs. The car just stops. With only two almost undetectable moments of wheel lockup, the Veyron slams to an eye-popping, stomach-rupturing halt in a perfectly straight line.

And right here, when confronted by such transcendent engineering, the $1.9 million asking price for the 2009 Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport seems almost cheap. This is a car, but it's so much more as well. It is a defining moment in engineering, a landmark happening. We can barely resist the temptation to clap our hands, giggle and lick the window.

Topless Motoring
With the Grand Sport's transparent polycarbonate roof in place, the targa car will hit 253 mph, just like the coupe. Once you take the roof out, then top speed is limited to a mere 217 mph. If you get caught in a rain shower, the Grand Sport packs a carbon-fiber contraption that can be snapped into place (it's no more than a ridiculous umbrella, really), and then 100 mph is as fast as you can go.

There are three chassis modes to allow you to set your top-speed ambitions for the day. The standard setup is good for 137 mph. If you're going faster, the performance mode drops the ride height closer to the pavement and deploys the rear spoiler at an angle of 15 degrees. If you're driving while topless, the rear wing is deployed at an angle of 20 degrees to maintain the car's aerodynamic balance.

If ultimate top speed is your goal, then you have to use a special key to unlock the electronics before you start the engine, and the car drops practically to the pavement while the wing is trimmed out to just 2 degrees.

The Nature of Speed
We're here on sunny Sardinia to enjoy the view from an open car, although Bugatti might also hope that the island's twisty roads will encourage us to keep the machinery on the ground instead of in flight. It takes a special staccato rhythm to drive quickly, shoving hard on the gas and then a confidence lift before the next brow or bend. You drive this way not because this 4,387-pound car can't take the speed into the corner, as, in fact, you never think about the weight because the car handles with sublimely sensitive fingertip control, almost like a Lotus. You lift simply because you're traveling so damn fast. There isn't quite the feedback of supercars as we know them, but then that is the payback for such supreme control.

Only once did the Grand Sport slip wide on the way into a corner thanks to us braking too late and too hard, but once we were on the gas again, the all-wheel drive sorted everything out. This incident aside, there was not one corner on the island that ruffled the car's feathers. No matter what it encounters, the chassis simply hunkers down on its epically proportioned 265/680R20 front and 365/710R21 rear Michelin Pilot Sport Pax run-flat tires.

Naturally, overtaking is a cinch, as every single gap in traffic becomes a red carpet. Just twist the wheel, tromp on the gas and pass two, three, four, even 10 cars at a time. It is an all-enveloping feeling of superiority and nothing — literally nothing — can stand in its way. Other cars come blessed with monster power, but you cannot access it in the same way. This is a rocket that your old gran could drive quickly.

Enjoy the View
The 2009 Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport simply goes, turns and stops faster than you can imagine possible. You can't manhandle it; the thing is too damned good. When the Veyron comes knocking, your every preconception of fast cars goes into the bin.

And yet this car might be even better at low speed. We drove through the slow-moving traffic along the harbor in Porto Cervo and then into neighboring villages, places that would have ripped the nose off a Ferrari. The Veyron just glided through the potholes in the cobblestones and across fallen branches.

With the Ricardo-engineered dual-clutch automated manual transmission in automatic mode, the Bugatti is as easy to drive as a Volkswagen Golf. No jerking recalcitrance in the usual supercar style.

Automotive Royalty
While the Bugatti Veyron has been with us since 2005, this unique shape still has an incomparable impact. Kids run to wave, tourists pull out cameras, the super-rich look on thoughtfully and beautiful women suddenly seem interested.

As Thevenin, a former racing driver as well as a hired gun for Bugatti, smiles and waves at passersby from the right seat, we shrink a little behind the steering wheel, unused to the movie star treatment.

"Look," Thevenin explains. "Some of them don't know what the car is; they just know it is special. But when you are driving the Veyron and you go past a guy in another supercar — any supercar — you just look at each other. They know, and you know."

Deliveries of the 2009 Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport begin in July. And this has drawn 30 customers already for one of the 150 examples of this $1.9 million creation that are scheduled to be built. The Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport is an automotive artwork and an engineering masterpiece the likes of which we will almost certainly never see again. It's the chance to feel like a bizarre combination of a Greek god and a giggling teenager, if only for a few seconds at a time.

Edmunds attended a manufacturer-sponsored event, to which selected members of the press were invited, to facilitate this report.