The Man in the White Suit: The Stig, Le Mans, the Fast Lane and Me (31 page)

‘Nigel, why don’t you hop in for this one?’ I said.

He climbed in reluctantly, scooched his long body into the passenger footwel so he couldn’t be seen, and set the cameras running. I applied the brake with my left foot, which acted like a clutch, floored the gas with my right and then lifted the anchor.

The car charged forward like the
Mil ennium Falcon
going into hyper-space, and the wide expanse of tarmac suddenly narrowed on to the motorway. Sure enough, the Bug transported Nigel into another world.

He said nothing. He just rocked back with fits of carefree laughter.

For most of the shoot I ran the Bug in handling mode, which was good for 233mph, only switching to speed mode, with the wing down, when I needed a bit of extra juice. As you passed around 140 the downforce sucked the car into the road and the suspension reassuringly locked itself in. The amount of powered rubber in contact with the ground meant the Bug was always poised to take a direction. You held on and drove it, 100 per cent of the time.

Beyond 180, ahem, the aero balance started to favour the rear and made it less wil ing to dart around.

As we crossed the border into Switzerland we started seeing more German plates and seriously powerful Porsches. Good sport.

I noticed an orange ant in my mirror, closing at a rate of about 80mph. Appropriately enough, some hard Haus music started pounding out of the radio. You only live once.

‘Watch this, Frenchie.’

I notched down to fourth and let the 911 Turbo run past at flat chat, then nailed the throttle. We matched his speed within a second, then splash, bye-bye Porker. For good measure I opened the tap al the way, leaving the boy marooned in the fast lane.

The Bug firmed up, tyres hissing and roaring. At 230mph, a sparsely populated autobahn metamorphosed into a Grand Prix circuit. Dotted white lines became a seamless blur. Cat’s-eyes pummel ed the undercarriage like speed bumps. The slightest kink in the carriageway became a corner.

Your eyes only moved from the road’s horizon for mil iseconds, anticipating the cumbersome trajectories of the other ‘static’ road users wel in advance as the Bug gobbled tarmac at a rate of 340 feet per second, the length of a footbal pitch in a blink of an eye.

A line of flashing lights whipped into view, blocking the fast lane. Traffic accumulated. I pul ed the ripcord and hit the brakes, knocking the Bug out of speed mode. The rear wing went vertical to form an air-brake, the suspension adjusted smoothly to the interruption and the ABS crackled underfoot.

They told me it could stop dead from 250 in ten seconds. What bul . It took less than that.

If the Bugatti was the fastest car in the world, the second fastest was the Audi RS6 containing the VW engineers who were trying to keep an eye on us. Whenever I sped off, the Audi would loom into view a few moments later. As our journey progressed, a mutual respect developed between the
TG
crew and the Teutonic boffins who were supporting us.

I lost count of how many times we up and passed the camera and the number of roads we did them on. Through kaleidoscopic tunnels, stunning archways of trees, tiny Italian vil ages, across open fields, up twisting mountain roads, past wind farms, vineyards and fast-flowing rivers, the visual feast of continental Europe unfolded before our windscreen.

The trip seemed to end as suddenly as it had begun. In Milan I reluctantly handed back the keys for the final time. My life would never be the same again. The Bug was being snatched away from us by a journo for review. He’d been hounding Nigel al week.

To say I was jealous would be like claiming that Cindy Crawford was mildly attractive. I could only console myself with the hope that my rival for the Bug’s affections might be a plump, balding man with glasses. In that, at least, I wasn’t disappointed.

I
was reunited with the Bug when the time came to spank it around the Dunsfold circuit. Bugatti didn’t have one available, so
Top Gear
convinced a private owner to hand over his keys. Amazingly, he only had one stipulation …

Our new fast-talking Series Producer, Pat Doyle, had been around the TV block; he was as canny as a one-armed snake catcher. His thankless task was to try and control our spiral ing budget and keep a leash on the pack of hounds chasing editorial nirvana. He had a curly brown mul et and a mouth that beamed whenever something unconscionable or surreal was unfolding. With
TG
that meant most of the time, and now was no exception.

‘How many laps do you think you need, Stig?’

‘That’s as long as a piece of string. At least six or seven; as many as it takes to get the tyres working.’

‘OK, six laps. The owner’s over there …’ His brow furrowed. ‘He’s giving me chapter and verse of his life story; he’s only just bought the car, yada yada, and the deal is we have to pay for these tyres if you screw

’em. So, less laps is good. Can you do less laps?’

‘I can try. It depends on track conditions and how accurate you want the time to be. Can I use launch control?’

‘Um … Yeah … Wil that screw the tyres?’

After grappling with rubber it was time to talk fuel. We needed some. I didn’t fancy driving this guy’s brand-new baby on the open road in case someone drove into the back of it, so we dispatched him to the petrol station. He returned with a gouge running down the length of the right side, having had a minor disagreement with the concrete plinth beside the pump. I stil had to watch those tyres, though.

I wanted the Bug to do wel on the track, but in spite of its unrival ed power-to-weight ratio it stil weighed a ton more than a Ferrari 430 and it proved hard going to stop, point and squirt it out of the tight corners at Dunsfold. On the straights, it was phenomenal, but out of the corners the al -wheel drive hunted fruitlessly for traction before being blown out by the massive engine torque.

The Bug was the King of the Road, the most awesome car ever made. But my granny could have popped her dentures in the cup holder and driven a more electric lap with her mobility chair.

I arrived early another morning for a different powertest altogether, grabbed a coffee and hooked up with Wiseman.

‘We’ve got the Big Daddy today, Stiggy. We’ve got the Koenigsegg.’

‘Sounds great. What is it?’

For driving on the edge, nothing was more fearsome or difficult to pronounce than the Koenigsegg CCX. This 806 horsepower Swedish landmine was the brainchild of the company’s founder Christian von Koenigsegg, who dreamt of making a car that would break world records. In 2005 the CCX scalped Guinness records for both the fastest and most powerful production car in the world. In 2006 they brought the car to
TG
for a crack at posting the fastest time on our leaderboard.

As Jim fil ed me in, Jeremy appeared from the other end of the office in a haze of smoke. ‘Be careful in that car. Look, I know you’re a good driver but, trust me, this is like nothing you have ever driven before.

It’s a beast. The cornering is …
something else
. Just wait; you’l see what I mean.’

That was odd. Jeremy never did that.

Jim and I made our way down to the start to see how things were shaping up. The camera crews were busily making their way around the track in their little black vans. I could make out a large square object hogging a big section of the parking area. A flurry of men in dark overal s hovered around it NASA style, probing things. They opened an enormous engine cover, and for a moment it looked as though the car might transform into an aircraft-carrier.

It sat on fat 20-inch tyres that neatly fel in line with the square side profile, but the car seemed noticeably shy of downforce. There was no sign of any wings that would generate high-speed grip, and the bodywork was too flat. As I quizzed Christian von K, the car’s ethos became clear. It was designed to avoid drag at al costs, in order to go as fast as physical y possible in a straight line and break the world record.

Christian could easily have passed for Ernst Stavro Blofeld’s cheery cousin. He was passionate about his baby, showering me with facts and figures to il ustrate its prowess. He was living out a boyhood dream to build a dominant supercar. His team anticipated another striking performance around Dunsfold, but as the Bug had discovered, the track could be a cruel mistress.

I peered into the engine bay to have a look at what would shortly be pushing me along the strip at 170mph. Once you hit the track you were either total y committed or you shouldn’t be there at al .

The 4.7-litre V8 engine was locked into the rear bulkhead, in a similar layout to a Le Mans car, with the springs and dampers clearly visible over the double wishbone suspension. The al -carbon air scoop snaked across the top of the engine like the taut neck of a body-builder.

I lifted the door up, not out, towards the sky, and was surprised to find my helmet wedged into the upholstered ceiling when I sat inside. I squidged around to find a less claustrophobic position and strapped myself into the belts.

I gunned the engine and felt the brawn of the cylinders rumbling behind the seat.

I gave Jim the thumbs up. He grinned. ‘Be careful out there!’

‘Never.’

‘Stand by to rol , everyone, track is going live in 3, 2, 1 …’

I dropped the clutch at just over 4,000 revs and shot off with the rear bouncing. Aboard the Koenigsegg you actual y felt the spinning wheels patting the tarmac. The engine barked a raw note as the revs peaked and fel each time the wheels broke traction. In just over three seconds the car reached 60mph, and a few seconds after that it was running at 120 into the first corner. I squeezed the brake pedal and felt the weight swing across the rear axle. With minimal downforce to keep it in check, the rear twitched and my world started rocking.

Changing gears required the dexterity of a brain surgeon to avoid crossing the gate and grabbing the wrong gear. A fumbled down-change would lock the rear wheels in an instant and could spit the car off the track. On the up-change, it might over-rev and blow the engine to bits.

As I exited the first corner I short-shifted a gear to reduce the wheelspin and make life easier. There was so much grunt that she stil let loose and I strained into the belts as the back swung away.

The steering wheel felt as smal as a beer mat when I whipped it over and struggled to find the return point, the moment in the slide when the grip came back and required me to straighten the front wheels.

Leave it too late and the slide would go into transition and spit me off. The CCX had a slow steering rack, which meant I had to work the wheel twice as much as normal. I was aware of the flurry of my white gloves and suffered the added indignity of accidental y setting off the horn buttons on the wheel handles.

I stroked her up to about 145 on the back straight towards the heavy braking area for Hammerhead.

I pressed the pedal and it moved towards the floor, but the car didn’t slow down. Tyre wal , landing lights, field, trees ahead.

I had to lift my foot and apply it again twice to build fluid pressure and slow the car in time for the corner. I straight-lined the chicane and took a close-up of the catch net they used to put up for snagging greedy jets that gobbled up too much runway.

I motored on towards the Fol ow Through, checked the brakes and turned in. The car felt very light at the rear as I powered through and towards the tyre wal corner. I gave a big lift and then floored it on to the main straight towards the final corners. As we straightened up it felt like the main body was stil leaning from the previous corner. The bodywork was acting like an aerofoil as the speed built up over 160. It was so light on downforce that nothing prevented it from squirming around.

I needed to speak to Jim.

‘It sounds amazing; what’s it like?’

‘It’s … amazing al right. It’s got a braking problem; the pedal is going long at the Hammerhead chicane. Feels like I might lose them completely. Also, there’s something wrong with the power steering; it suddenly goes heavy when I’m sliding.’

Jim translated this into Koenigsegg and came back with his response.

‘They say that their driver, wel , their engineer, warmed the car up this morning and it was fine. It’s up to you. If it’s not safe, obviously don’t drive it.’

I stared at the dashboard for an answer. It would be a major blow to Koenigsegg if I refused to drive.

Then again, I didn’t fancy brake failure and being flat-packed at the Hammerhead tyre wal .

‘It’s cool. Let’s crack on, but if it gets worse we might have to stop.’

I closed the door and lined up, with Jim ready on the stopwatch. It was al or nothing now. My heart picked up a notch and the adrenalin ramped up.

Three, two, one …

I kept a watching brief on the brake pedal, tapping it up with my left foot on the approach to every corner to check it was stil there. It was, but only just.

The car was never easy. It had so much power that I had to change gear with the frequency of a hummingbird on acid. Every time it crested the rise into the first corner I nearly disappeared down the escape road. We had to reposition the camera twice as far back.

Under heavy braking it wanted to slide; as soon as I turned, it wanted to slide, accelerate, slide. The sheer weight of the car meant that once it went off line, dragging it back was impossible.

Most supercars went through the flat-out kink towards Chicago, wel , flat out. The Koenigsegg rol ed in with the suggestion that it might swap ends at any moment. Braking on the other side was spirited, in the way that slow dancing with a rattlesnake can be.

In the slower corners the front wouldn’t turn, then as I tried to balance the car on the throttle the rear viciously broke traction. I sent a hand to catch it, usual y the one that was already busy changing gear, which was like threading a piece of bendy cotton through the eye of a burning needle.

As I reached Hammerhead for the second time I was determined to show the scary bitch who was boss. I brought the brake pedal up with my left foot but held off the brakes til the last moment. If they didn’t do the business, I’d be chewing bark.