The Bugatti Veyron. 1001 horsepower. Fuck me running! That will launch you from 0 to 60 mph in 3 seconds, and you’ll be blowing past 200 mph in just 13 seconds. Compare that to a Dodge Viper with a paltry 500 hp. Astonishingly the Viper is only nine tenths of a second off on 0 – 60. But it’s all the Veyron’s extra horses that it up to that magical 253 mph, while the turtle-like Viper only manages 190. Yeah, only.

This is the rear air spoiler. It provides down force, which in turn, keeps the car on the ground for cornering and “relatively” high-speed driving. For top speed runs a special key is needed to manually override the wing for maximum aerodynamic efficiency (the car also automatically lowers). It also acts as a parachute brake in emergency “oh shit I need to stop” situations. This isn’t an Acura fiberglass bolt on accessory; it’s the real deal.

This is the interior of the land rocket. Surprisingly plush and refined, it hardly looks like it was made to crack the sound barrier. Around the driver and passenger is a single-piece carbon-fiber monocoque, the same things on every racecar, providing superior crash protection.

Note the top speed on the speedometer to the far right; 260. This is serious business. You know it is when the tachometer is front and center. There really isn’t that much time to admire how fast you are going when you are covering a football field a second.

This is the quad-turbocharged W16 engine. The heart of the beast consists of four banks of four cylinders (two juxtaposed V8 engine blocks), coupled to a single crankshaft. This drives the power to all four wheels. Which, by the way, are specially and specifically designed high-speed tires for the Veyron.

So I want one, and you probably want one now too, eh? So how much will this bad boy set you back? Only about $1,700,000. Gulp. But for that price you ARE the fastest thing on the road, and in many cases the sky too. It provides unadulterated and uninterrupted acceleration from a standing start to maximum speed: a feeling previously known only to jet pilots. Sign us up.

The Veyron in Action:

Bugatti Veyron 16.4: The Facts