First batch of Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+ cars built

Bugatti says it's finished building the first eight production versions of its Chiron Super Sport 300+ almost two years to the day since the longtail hypercar clocked 490.484km/h at a test track in Germany.

According to Bugatti, the past 24 months have been spent fine-tuning its fastest, most-powerful road car ever, with particular attention paid to calibrating the powertrain for general use, as well as the occasional top speed run.

Speaking of which, like the prototype, the production Super Sport 300+ gets an uprated quad-turbo 8.0-litre W16 engine that pushes out an incredible 1176kW of power -- up from the standard Chiron Sport's 1120kW.

For the transformation from prototype to production reality the road-going variant also gets the taller gearing of the record-breaking car, although it loses the roll-cage fitted to the latter and regains the passenger seat that needed to be removed to accommodate the GPS and a raft of computer equipment to log all the data from the high-speed runs.

The Bugatti Super Sport 300+ wears a different set of lightweight magnesium rims than the record-setting car but gets the same reinforced Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tyres that were specially created for the record-breaker.

That said, the road version of the Super Sport 300+ will be speed-limited to 'just' 440km/h – with no option to unlock the limiter for high-speed runs.

According to Bugatti, to hit its maximum 490km/h it needs 'perfect' conditions and the presence of a professional driver behind the wheel.

Featuring the same striking record-setting Chiron’s aero-optimised longtail bodywork, which was designed by Dallara to reduce drag by 40 per cent, the unique Bugatti also comes with special front air curtains to guide excess pressure developing at the front, plus air inlets towards the rear.

The first eight cars to roll off the famous Molsheim production line in France all come painted in the same black and orange paint as the original prototype, the impossibly high speed of which was never officially recognised as a world record.

For it to count, the Chiron Super Sport 300+ would have had to record a two-way average run with independent judges in attendance.

Despite engineers being confident that a 500km/h top speed was feasible (denser air in Nevada was calculated to add at least another 25km/h) a later run in the US was ruled-out over safety grounds.

There's no word on exactly how much each of the 30 hypercars cost, but Bugatti said back in 2019 that the Chiron Super Sport 300+ would be priced from around €3.5 million ($A5.7m) before options.