“Nothing, absolutely nothing other than a Formula One car on a hot lap, can prepare you for the time warping acceleration of the Veyron at full throttle. This car is disturbingly fast”Model tested: 2008 Bugatti Veyron 16.4 - Black Metallic
Price as tested: AUD$2.7 million
After twenty-three gruelling hours in a seriously packed economy class cabin, we arrived in Frankfurt via Abu Dhabi, ready for what we thought was a well earned luxury business class flight to Strasbourg in France.
Turns out, our double degree IT guru and fellow motoring journalist Alborz, (who said his friend at flight centre had it sorted), had completely misread the ticket. Bus – actually meant BUS – the road going version. All sorted?
By some stroke of luck though, the bus company had grossly overbooked both Strasbourg bound buses, and Bruno, the guy at the Lufthansa desk, worked some magic and presto, we had a Ford Mondeo TDCi for twenty-four hours, at no cost. Gold, we thought.
The diesel powered Mondeo is no slouch, within moments we are sitting on a comfortable 200km/h as we head towards Molsheim, the home of Bugatti.
It couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes into the trip and bugger, something felt badly out of whack with the front end. What we found, was a dirty great big hole in the middle of the right front tyre tread, which meant we weren’t going anywhere fast. That is, until we got the spare on and rebooted to that blissful 200km/h.
The look of disappointment on our faces, when we lifted the boot lining and saw that 125-width space saver, said it all. And it was a Sunday!
By - Anthony Crawford & Alborz Fallah
