Back in 2019 after absolutely destroying the production car top speed world record with the Chiron Super Sport , the first car to hit the 300-mph mark , then-president of the brand Stephan Winkelmann said the French marque was done chasing top speed records . Recently appointed CEO Mate Rimac has said “screw that” in a big way, as the W16 Mistral just demolished the top speed record for open-top cars, going 21 mph faster than Bugatti initially estimated it would. As a refresher, the Mistral is the final Bugatti road car to use the incredible quad-turbo 8.
0-liter W16 engine, alongside the track-only Bolide , and it’s essentially a roofless Chiron with unique exterior styling. It makes 1,578 horsepower, the same as the Chiron Super Sport, and when it was unveiled in 2022 Bugatti initially estimated the Mistral would have a top speed of 261 mph, eclipsing the 254-mph top speed record set by the Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse convertible in 2013. It turns out, Bugatti’s estimates were way too conservative.
The Mistral’s new record was set by Le Mans winner Andy Wallace, who has done all of Bugatti’s other records, at the Papenburg test facility in Germany. (Bugatti is no longer able to use Ehra-Lessien now that it’s been separated from Volkswagen control.) According to Top Gear , which was present for the run, the track’s 2.
5-mile-long straights are half the length of the ones at Ehra-Lessien, so the Mistral had to carry a lot more speed out of the banked corners — .