You Need The World’s Best Dyno For The Bugatti Chiron Super Sport

As you can probably imagine, a pretty serious dynamometer that can handle all-wheel drive is required to get reliable data from a Bugatti Chiron.

Thankfully, the hypercar marque found one. All dynos have rollers, but this one is a little different. Rather than using two small rollers, each wheel gets its own. Bugatti says the advantage of that layout is that each wheel has only one touchpoint, just like on the road. Theoretically, this allows the wheel’s rolling behavior to give a more accurate power figure of what the car is putting down on pavement. All those stats and data are well and good, but we’ll cut to it now. This Bugatti Chiron Super Sport made 1,595.223 hp on the dyno, or 1,618 PS.

Bugatti says that wheel slip and flex are reduced in comparison with a two-roller dyno. As a result, the specially-made Michelin tires heat up less, which allows for higher speeds. In all, this dyno allows for speeds up to 248 mph, pretty darn close to the Chiron Super Sport’s 304 mph top speed. At the dyno’s 248 mph top speed, the tires on the SS are rotating more than 50 times a second.

The size of the thing is just as impressive as the power it can hold. It might not look it, seeing as much of its mass is hidden beneath the immaculately clean shop floor. A single roller set weighs 3.5 tons, and the rotating mass is roughly 1,578 lbs. At the rear, the rollers can be adapted to any car’s wheelbase using hydraulic actuators. Moreover, the roller’s advanced systems mean cars can still brake safely, rather than slowly decelerating as you normally see on video footage.

Obviously, you need quite a lot to fasten down a car doing 248 mph while standing still. Bugatti fitted a frame with four adapter plates under the Chiron’s carbon monocoque. Each of these is attached to the others with chains, which is then anchored to the floor. Each chain can hold up to 24 tons so that Chiron wasn’t going anywhere.

Honestly, the dyno is nearly as mechanically impressive as the Chiron SS itself. The engineering needed to make high-power cars run as hard as they can, and to do it safely, can’t be overstated. That’s especially true when the $3 million car that’s sitting on it is worth more than some airplanes.