The most powerful roadster of all time

"Please be upstanding" for the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport Vitesse, "the most powerful factory-built roadster in the history of time", says Matthew Jones on TopGear.com.

This new model is "roughly one Golf GTI" more powerful than its predecessors: the 16-cylinder engine has four turbo-chargers and develops 1,184bhp, and the chassis has "been beefed up to support the extra muscle".

The car also has new front and rear bumpers as part of a tweaked aerodynamic package, says Ben Pulman in Car. Bugatti president Wolfgang Drheimer says that the firm "gave our all to transfer the achievements of the Super Sport over to the Grand Sport, thereby turning open-top driving itself into an extraordinary experience at high speed".

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So what kind of performance should you expect? Figures have yet to be released, but the Veyron Super Sport holds the current world speed record for a road car at 269mph. The 0-62mph time should be in the region of 2.5 seconds. "There's no word on prices either, but we'd reckon you'll need about £2m for one of these. Start saving now..."