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Bugatti Veyron: The First Modern Hypercar Turns 20

Built from 2005 to 2015, the Bugatti Veyron combined a 1,001 PS quad-turbo W16 with a 407 km/h reported top speed. Here’s how the car and its variants evolved.
Entry003 Date Time3 min MechanicCarCody Team
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Bugatti began building the Veyron in Molsheim, France, in 2005, making 2025 the car’s twentieth-anniversary year. Bugatti describes it as the “first modern-day hyper sports car”—a fitting historical characterization of a project that turned a 400 km/h ambition into a production car, though “first modern hypercar” is not a formally agreed category. The original Veyron paired an 8.0-litre, quad-turbo W16 with 1,001 PS and a Bugatti-reported top speed of 407 km/h.

How the Veyron went from an engine sketch to a production car

Bugatti traces the Veyron’s origins to a 1997 sketch by Ferdinand K. Piëch depicting an 18-cylinder engine. The company’s concept-car sequence then included the EB 118, EB 218, EB 18/3 Chiron and EB 18/4 Veyron. These were stages in the design and engineering story, not production Veyrons. The EB 18/4 Veyron concept appeared in 1999; the eventual production car took a different engine route, adopting a W16 rather than the original W18 concept.

Bugatti says the decision to build the production car was made in 2001, with production starting in Molsheim in 2005. The result was a hand-built road car designed around a highly ambitious combination of speed, power and usability.

What made the original Veyron extraordinary?

The original car’s headline figures

In Bugatti’s 2019 retrospective, the original Veyron’s 8.0-litre W16 is rated at 736 kW, or 1,001 PS, at 6,000 rpm, with 1,250 Nm of torque between 2,200 and 5,000 rpm. Bugatti gives a 0–100 km/h time of 2.5 seconds, 0–200 km/h in 7.3 seconds and a top speed of 407 km/h. These are the manufacturer’s reported specifications, not results from an independent test.

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To exceed 400 km/h, the car needed more than a powerful engine. Bugatti’s account describes a coordinated package of four turbochargers, all-wheel drive, a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission, ten radiators, carbon-ceramic brake discs, an air brake and specially developed tires. Bugatti says a supplier spent about five years developing a tire capable of handling speeds beyond 400 km/h.

The Speed Key and high-speed setup

Bugatti says the Speed Key was required to reach speeds above 400 km/h. Using it changed the car’s ride height and aerodynamic settings for high-speed running. The detail illustrates the Veyron’s central engineering challenge: managing heat, grip, braking and aerodynamic load as a connected system, rather than treating top speed as an engine figure alone.

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How the Veyron range evolved

Bugatti expanded the Veyron beyond the original coupe with open-top and higher-output versions. The figures below are Bugatti-reported; the Super Sport’s record should not be confused with the original coupe’s 407 km/h figure.

Variant Introduced Body style Output Reported top speed
Veyron 16.4 Production began in 2005 Coupe 1,001 PS 407 km/h
Veyron Grand Sport 2008 Roadster Not stated in the cited Bugatti material Not stated in the cited Bugatti material
Veyron Super Sport 2010 Coupe 1,200 PS 431 km/h in Bugatti’s 2019 retrospective
Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse 2012 Roadster Not stated in the cited Bugatti material Not stated in the cited Bugatti material

Bugatti’s 2015 announcement of the final Veyron gives 431.072 km/h as the record speed associated with the Super Sport. That more precise figure and the 431 km/h figure in the later retrospective refer to the high-speed achievement, not to every Veyron variant.

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How many Bugatti Veyrons were made?

Bugatti reported a final production total of 450 cars: 300 coupes and 150 roadsters. Production ended in 2015. The last car, chassis 450, was a Grand Sport Vitesse named “La Finale.”

Bugatti’s 2019 retrospective said prices started at €1.16 million and that some bespoke models approached €3 million, excluding tax. Those are historical original-price figures reported by the manufacturer, not current resale valuations.

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Why the Veyron is called the first modern hypercar

Bugatti calls the Veyron the “first modern-day hyper sports car.” The label captures the car’s role in the company’s own history: its extraordinary speed target required an integrated production-car package, and its variants extended that engineering program into both coupe and roadster forms. But “first modern hypercar” is a historical shorthand, not a universally defined class with an agreed first entry. The careful claim is that Bugatti presents the Veyron as a category-defining modern car, rather than that every observer applies the same formal definition.

In Bugatti’s anniversary-era retrospective, President Stephan Winkelmann said: “Thanks to the Veyron, Bugatti catapulted itself into a new dimension. We set benchmarks around 20 years ago with the first luxury hyper sports car and we are proud of that to this day.” That is the manufacturer’s perspective on the Veyron’s legacy.

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