Twenty years ago, near as dammit, Bugatti launched the world’s first proper production car with an engine capable of producing 1000bhp. And yes, I know the Veyron was claimed only to have 1001 pferdestärke or ‘PS’ (a mere 987bhp) but when I drove it at its international press launch on Sicily, I was assured that, in reality, the car actually had ‘well over 1000 British horsepowers (sic)’.
So of course I could scarcely leave the island without finding out what that felt like, despite its topography being so singularly unsuited to such a vast, heavy and powerful machine, and when I finally glimpsed between sharp intakes of breath the power needle indicate four figures, I was aware I was ticking off another personal milestone. A thousand horsepower! Who’d have thought it? Certainly not little old me who’d entered the business 17 years earlier when there was not a production car on sale with close to half that amount. Only problem was that 1000bhp and the infrastructure required to harness it cost a million quid, around £1.7m in today’s terms.
How much, then, does that same thousand horsepower cost you right now? If you live in the US and order a Tesla Model S Plaid, it will set you back $83,490 or, put another way, £63,970, almost exactly the same as Audi will charge you for a mid-spec Q6 e-tron SUV.
