After being crowned as the world’s fastest production car almost three years ago, the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport has officially been stripped of that illustrious title after the team at Guinness World Records discovered the car had its speed limited deactivated during the run
In an official statement released on Friday, Guinness announced that the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport had breached the rules as it was not completely stock following an enquiry made by Driving.co.uk.
When the record was set in July 2010, the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport hit a top speed of 267.8mph but all 30 production cars are limited to just 258mph.
PR Director for Guinness Jaime Strang said, “It has come to the attention of Guinness World Records that there was an oversight in its adjudication of the ‘Fastest production car’ which was set in 2010 by the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Super Sport.
“As the car’s speed limiter was deactivated, this modification was against the official guidelines. Consequently, the vehicle’s record set at 431.072 km/h is no longer valid. Following this, Guinness World Records is reviewing this category with expert external consultants to ensure our records fairly reflect achievements in this field.”
What this now means is that the official title for world’s fastest production car will likely revert back to the SSC Ultimate Aero TT which originally reached 256.1mph before the launch of the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport.
Just a couple of days ago, Hennessey Performance reached 265.7mph in the Hennessey Venom GT, but that record was not achieved under world record conditions.
Despite this announcement, Bugatti is supporting its record saying “Guinness knew the Veyron’s speed limiter was deactivated but that for safety reasons, cars subsequently sold to customers would have their speed limiters activated [set at 258mph].”
Because limiting a car to 258mph makes it that much slower and that much safer.