Jason Harper

Nosing Around: The Bugatti Grand Sport is unusual even in the Hamptons

What would you do with a cool $2 million? Say you hit the Pick 11 lottery, a long-lost mob-connected uncle croaks, or you found Microsoft stock lining a cardboard box holding ugly dishes in a garage sale.

Seriously, it’s kind of a magic figure, right? Not enough to set you up for life, perhaps, but enough to comfortably cushion just off the interest.

Which is why the concept of, say, totaling $2 million is kinda disconcerting. Not, mind you, by investing with Bernie or buying Miami condos to flip or even splurging daily on Masa dinners and 5th Ave shopping excursions. I mean actually WRECKING $2 million worth of property with one errant flip of the steering wheel or an inattentive, radio-fiddling moment.

9 and 5: Hands on the wheel, please.

Such is the prospect when I slid into the lush but simple cockpit of the Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport, the world’s most expensive production car. Dude, this thing is $2.1 million. I’ve driven LOTS of expensive cars before — I though the half-million dollar Rolls-Royce Phantom was a big deal, but the Grand Sport eclipsed that experience.

With great wealth (namely somebody else’s) comes great responsibility.

[I review the car in my weekly Bloomberg auto column. You can find the Bugatti review here, or just see it here on this site.]

At home: The Grand Sport in its natural environs.

But somebody asked me today, did driving it make you nervous?

Yes. And no.

Funny, the most nerve-wrakcing moment was actually pulling it out of a gas station onto a busy two-way street, with traffic buzzing both ways. The nose is pretty low, and it’s made of carbon fiber which probably equals six-and-a-half months of my salary, and I really didn’t want to scrape it. Which meant a rather slow maneuever off the curb. Only I didn’t want to go TOO slowly and get T-boned by a crappy Kia.

So, yeah, that made my hands sweat.

And yet, when my chaperone and I managed to find a curvy road, those fears evaporated. (Bugatti insists that a Bugatti employee accompanies you on a drive — the US marketing manager, John Hill, was my passenger. He’s an extremely nice and quite fearless man.)

Flashin: The Bugatti badge

The car is meant to fast. Really, really fast. 253 miles per hour fast. It’s the fastest production car in the world, in fact, other than the SSC Aero, which isn’t really a production car and broke down off the Vegas strip the one time I drove it (an embarrassing moment, but I digress).

But everybody’s so caught up in its top speed that no one really talks about how the car feels on curvy roads. It’s not a light ride at over 4,000 pounds, but it has over 1,000 horsepower and all-wheel-drive (again, stats that mean it handles well over 150 mph).

None of which means it will necessarily rock on windy roads. I gotta tell you, however, it does just fine. You best drive the twisties with some discretion, because get too hard on the throttle and you’ll suddenly find yourself traveling at 145 mph and about to enter a hairpin (not recommended). I kept a steady throttle, though, and was amazed at its composure as it swept through turns like a much lighter vehicle. (That’s what you get for the extra $1.8 million over a Ferrari, I suppose.)

But those worries about scratching the fine, fine paint or, you know, putting it into a telephone pole? They went away. When you’re going fast you don’t have time for worries (or if you do, you’re thinking about the wrong thing). In the 2.5 seconds it took me to go from a stop to more than 60 and then swing around the first curve, I had quite forgotten the cost. I was just having silly, stupid, fun.

Is the car worth all that money? Well, to the likes of you and me? Probably not. Actually, definitely not. After all, it’s a convertible with just enough room for two adults and has no storage whatsoever. For my cool $2 million I’d be looking for at least enough room to stretch out in — cause I’d be LIVING in it.

Exposure: A view of the massive W-16 engine. It makes it go-go.

What you have to consider is that any guy who is gonna buy this car (and they’re all guys), already have 25 other cars, and a huge garage bigger than your house to store them in. $2 million is chump change.

So, as I pulled up to the parking lot and got out, I carefully hit the fob to lock it (despite the fact that the top was still open). I was pleased that it had been a faultless, no-crashing type of day. After all, when dealing with somebody else’s wealth, there’s great responsibility.