On a beautiful sunny day at 25 degrees the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Super Sport achieved a new landspeed world record for production cars, on the proving grounds of the Volkswagen Group at Ehra-Lessien (nearby its headquarters at Wolfsburg). In the presence of the German Technical Inspection Agency (TÜV) and a representative of Guinness Book of Records the Super Sport achieved an average top speed of 268 mph (431 km/h).

Bugatti's Pilote Officiel Pierre Henri Raphanel puts his helmet and gloves on, pulls the safety belts tight whilst the engineers check the car a very last time: tire pressure, temperature, all systems go. Then the orange black Super Sport crosses the light barrier, from now on the time will be taken, within one hour the car has to drive from South to North and then in the opposite direction.

No one but the driver is allowed to touch the car during this time. The tension rises. A few minutes later we can hear from the left side the sound of a starting jumbo jet coming closer towards us. First we perceive the headlights of the Veyron, then we can recognize the shape of the car, a loud wooosh and Raphanel dashes in top speed past us. The GPS-tachometer stops at 265.905 mph (427.933 km/h). Now the same procedure from the opposite direction. This time the car reaches 269.806 mph (434.211 km/h). As average top speed the representatives of the TÜV and Guinness generate a value of 267.856 mph (431.072 km/h). This even hit Bugatti's engineering team by surprise.

"We took it that we would reach an average value of 264 mph," explains Bugatti's chief engineer Dr. Wolfgang Schreiber, "but the conditions today were perfect and allowed even more."