text: It’s a distinction that is actually worth making — this is a world record top speed for a convertible. Not a hardtop. Not a closed coupe. The reason we make this distinction is that cars with their tops off tend to buffet around at, say, 70 or 80 miles an hour, what with the wind slamming over the (in this case, poorly named) windshield and rocketing down into the cabin, where it blows everything and everybody all askew.
  
  Imagine this at more than three times your normal freeway speed.
  
  That’s what racing driver Anthony Liu got to experience at the Volkswagen Group (VW owns Bugatti) test track in Ehra-Lessien, Germany, a few days ago. The car was not just any car and, in fact, it was not just any Bugatti Veyron. This was a Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport Vitesse (GSV) and instead of the standard Veyron’s 1,001 horsepower, this GSV was throwing out 1,200 horses from its 8-liter W16 engine.
  
  With a few bystanders looking on, Liu cranked up the GSV and launched it around the 13-mile test track. On the five-mile straightaway, he hit 254 miles an hour. (Or 408 kilometers an hour, if you’re into the whole metric thing.) Liu reported later that even at this 200-plus-mph speed, the car was “incredibly comfortable and stable.”
  
  Wanna do this yourself? Find a patch of Nevada or Utah desert and unleash the beast? VW will be happy to sell you one of these two-seat rockets at a little over $2.6 million a copy. I got to drive one a few years ago and you can see that report (and photos) here.
summary: Bugatti Veyron with the top off — 254 miles an hour. And you can license it for the street.