How the Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse can punch all your buttons: Motoramic Drives

As of today, there are four Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport Vitesse roadsters in the world, the fastest open-topped cars ever built, each valued at a minimum of $2.4 million and capable of hitting 255 mph. Driving one feels like the ultimate cheat code in the video game of life; maximum power, near invincibility and all the coins. It's also a peek inside the hidden kingdom of Bugatti owners, where $20,000 tire changes seem logical.

First, some genealogy: The Grand Sport Vitesse is the final evolution of the Bugatti Veyron launched in 2005. Those cars had 1,001 horsepower from their 16-cylinder, quad-turbocharged engines; the Grand Sport Vitesse makes an even 1,200 hp, combined with a sleeker body, suspension changes and a removable roof. After building about 350 Veyrons, Bugatti has vowed to build about 100 more.

Parked outside my hotel, the Vitesse sits as if someone pulled to the valet counter in a space shuttle. Awaiting me for my ride was Andy Wallace, a former 24 Hours of LeMans winner who's now Bugatti's on-call driver, showing owners and potential buyers how to get the car to 250 mph and back to zero without dying. It's like being an astronaut whose rocket goes forward instead of up.

Wallace spent several minutes showing me how easy the Vitesse was around suburban Connecticut. He might as well been narrating "50 Shades of Gray" in Esperanto for as much heed as I could muster, because nothing is normal when riding in a vehicle as orange as a Sunkist bottle with more horsepower than any NASCAR, Formula 1 or LeMans car.

A few notes did make it through: The Veyron rides low, requiring some assessment of driveways and curbs. It's a taut ride at everyday speeds, but rarely unpleasant. There are no touch screens, no video displays and perhaps most shockingly, no cupholders — because with 1.4 g's of lateral acceleration, a Starbucks venti would turn into a hot liquid grenade.

Your first surprise is the Vitesse's natural soundtrack. At low speeds, there's just this bass rumble from the 8-liter W-16 engine churning behind your shoulders. But when you blip the throttle, the four turbos spool up to force more air into the engine, then blow off excess pressure through their wastegates in a loud "whooooasssssh." It's as close as I will ever come to having a dragon snort on my neck.

Wallace did one launch of the Vitesse on an on-ramp. I can't say what speed we hit, because I couldn't turn my head to look at the speedometer from the passenger's seat. I can say that Bugatti's claim of 60 mph in 2.5 seconds feels like physical proof that Einstein was right about time slowing if you accelerate fast enough.

With that, Wallace gave me the reins to the dragon.

One of the great untold secrets about the Bugatti Veyron? It's a family car. Not in the sense that it could hold a stroller — it can barely fit a diaper bag in its front hatch — but that it exists only because of ancient familial pride.