883kW Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse

This is the Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse – an 883kW monster that brings Veyron Super Sport coupe performance to the Grand Sport roadster, and debuts at the 2012 Geneva Motor Show in March.

With every major international motor show Bugatti manages to roll out a slightly different version of its world-first 736kW production car, the Veyron. So with Geneva 2012 set to kick off next month, the news of another addition to the family doesn’t come as much of a surprise.

The Grand Sport Vitesse is based on the standard open-top Veyron but receives a healthy 147kW power hike, upping the 736kW output to the same 883kW as the Veyron Super Sport coupe, the vehicle that holds the current production car world speed record at 431km/h.

Torque now stands at 1,500Nm thanks to four enlarged turbochargers and intercoolers while accompanying chassis modifications – Bugatti isn’t releasing exact details of the tweaks – have been made to ensure the Vitesse can cope with 20 per cent more power.

However, according to Bugatti, the Vitesse is also “optically aligned to the Veyron Super Sport”, which presumably means refined aerodynamics and increased engine breathing.

Bugatti President, Wolfgang Durheimer:

“The rapid success of the Super Sport convinced us to increase the performance of the Bugatti roadster. Once again our engineers worked hard to demonstrate that Bugatti is able to constantly redefine the boundaries of what is technically feasible.

“We gave our all to transfer the achievements of the Super Sport over to the Grand Sport, thereby turning open-top driving itself into an extraordinary experience at high speed.”

With the hardtop in place, the Vitesse should at least approach the coupe’s top speed, and certainly the 2.5-second 0-100km/h time is likely to be basically identical. Remember though, if you’re forced to use the roadster’s emergency targa roof, maximum speed is just 130km/h.

It could prove a little embarrassing if you forget.