James Chrosniak/JalopnikThumb the little button on the fob to flick open the switchblade key, a charming Volkswagen hallmark. Stick it in the slot to the right of the steering wheel, twist, and the electronics turn on, colorful icons illuminating in the quintet of gauges. Hold your finger on the prominently placed round "start" button on the center console as the starter motor loudly whirrs for a moment and— wham!The Bugatti Veyron's quad-turbo W16 engine blasts to life.People always warn against meeting your heroes, but that hasn't been my experience. I'm lucky enough to have driven a lot of my dream cars, and none have let me down yet. But the prospect of driving a Bugatti Veyron for the first time was something else entirely. This is undoubtedly the defining car of my life, a childhood obsession that has only gotten more intense with time. Before this, I'd never had the opportunity to even ride shotgun in any Bugatti, let alone drive one. I thought that even having this job it might never happen for me, and I was (kind of) at peace with that. And yet there I was, getting behind the wheel of one.Daniel Golson/JalopnikLeading up to my drive, even seconds before getting in the car, I was frankly nervous as hell. What if something breaks? What if the man from Bugatti riding with me thinks I'm an idiot and a bad driver? What if a Tesla rear-ends me? What if I do something wrong, and I'm sued to oblivion? Or the real nightmare — what if, somehow, I'm disappointed by the car?AdvertisementAdvertisementI needn't have worried. My hour of driving the Veyron around Orange County was simply divine, an experience beyond words. This is perhaps the most superlative car of all time, and it left me a stuttering mess. Even now, months later, having had much time to digest and gush about the drive to others, it's still hard to describe what it was like beyond just exclaiming "it was perfect." But I'll do my best to try.Full disclosure: Bugatti invited me to drive down to Newport Beach so I could drive a Veyron and play with the new recommission configurator. How could I say no?Read more: These Were The First Cars Ever Made By The World's Best-Known AutomakersA lovely way to ring in 20 yearsJames Chrosniak/JalopnikAs part of the Veyron's 20th anniversary celebrations this year, Bugatti invited a handful of us journalists to its Newport Beach dealership (that's confusingly in Irvine) to play with the new Veyron recommission configurator and actually drive a Veyron, something most of us had never gotten to do before. Bugatti had found two local owners nice enough to share their cars for a few days; sadly by the time I arrived as the last one of the bunch, the blue-and-silver Super Sport had hit its lower owner-imposed mileage cap, so I was "stuck" with the white on black Grand Sport Vitesse you see here.AdvertisementAdvertisementThe Vitesse was the final version of the car, pairing the Super Sport's powertrain and aero package with the Grand Sport's convertible roof. Named L'Orq Blanc, this Vitesse is regularly driven around Los Angeles by its original owners — the digital readout in the power gauge showed 8,464 miles when I got in — so it was pretty cool to get behind the wheel of a car that I see around often.Daniel Golson/JalopnikMy drive route was about as un-fun as it could be, but that's not the fault of the roads themselves. It was a 30-mile loop, starting at the dealer and snaking down some of the twistier multi-lane roads to Laguna Beach, where I cruised along Pacific Coast Highway for a bit before jumping on the freeway back to the showroom. But, being the afternoon on a weekday, the roads were filled with slow-moving traffic and a lot of cops, heavily limiting my opportunities to really step on it. The Veyron is absurdly quick, after all, so you need a pretty lengthy straightaway to give the throttle even a quarter of a squeeze.Frustrating as it may seem to be stuck in traffic in a car like this, it was actually the perfect journey for showing off why the Veyron is unlike anything else. Ferdinand Piëch's brief was that the Veyron must be able to do 250 mph on the Autobahn and then elegantly pull up to the opera. Bugatti really wanted its customers to use their cars, putting a huge emphasis on making the Veyron comfortable and easy to drive in every situation from city traffic to long-distance grand touring. That "Top Gear" cliché of it driving like a Golf totally rings true.Sounds unlike anything elseBugattiI drove with the glass hardtop panel in place, and at first it was a bit creaky, but after a few minutes of driving in the California heat it settled down. Especially for a supercar with this level of performance, it really was shockingly quiet inside the Veyron, even at 90 mph on the freeway. Sitting shotgun with me was race car driver Jamie Morrow, who Bugatti brings in for various events and test drives, and we were able to easily hold a conversation without needing to raise our voices. Road noise from the absolutely humongous tires wasn't too bad, either.AdvertisementAdvertisementMere minutes after setting off, when I was still driving through the office park the dealer is nestled in, I thought to myself, "This is some of the best steering I've ever experienced," a sentiment that only got stronger the more I drove the car. First of all, the Veyron's steering wheel is absolutely perfect. The thin indented rim, the buttonless metal spokes, the overall diameter of the wheel — all excellent. Better yet is how the steering actually feels when you start turning that lovely wheel. At low speeds it's very heavy, which I actually liked, but with an unwieldy turning radius making a three-point turn is kinda brutal. Still, the Veyron's hydraulically assisted steering rack is impeccable. The wheel bristles with feedback, and it's extremely reactive and precise. Similarly lovely are the giant carbon-ceramic brakes, with firm and progressive feel from the pedal and no annoying squeaks or jerky low-speed operation.James Chrosniak/JalopnikThe W16 sits at a low purr when toodling around town, only really getting loud with heavy throttle application. It constantly makes all sorts of fantastic mechanical sounds, grumbles and growls and bellows and the occasional hearty bark, all paired with wonderful intake noise. You'll hear the ten radiators blowing away, plus the occasional chatter from the gearbox. No other engine sounds like the W16; it's more akin to a jumbo jet on takeoff than anything else. Even when the engine is roaring, it's still calm and in the background enough to keep chatting with your passenger, or enjoy some music from the actually very good Dynaudio Puccini sound system.But muffling the engine somewhat and slicing through all of the noise (or all of the luxury car silence) are the 8.0-liter engine's four turbochargers. They're arranged in parallel, one for each bank of cylinders, and they're all the same size. The Veyron's turbo sounds are far louder and more extreme than even whatever heavily modified JDM car your coolest friend owns. Press the throttle just 2% of the way, and there's a loud pssh. Let off the throttle the same amount, another pssh of a different kind. The more the pedal is depressed and the longer the acceleration, the louder and more prominent they sound. It's a hilarious endless barrage of the turbos whistling as they spool up, fluttering and changing tone as the boost grows, and hissing and whooshing away as the pressure is released. I don't think it would ever get old. Actually, I know it wouldn't.Smooth operatorJames Chrosniak/JalopnikBasically any other supercar or hypercar, even many brand new ones, would be unhappy sitting in stop-and-go traffic on a hot day, but not the Veyron. Its Ricardo-built 7-speed DSG transmission, another bit of Volkswagen Group synergy, executes extremely smooth, almost imperceptible shifts even when just cycling between first and second. When new it was the quickest-shifting gearbox in the world, and there's no roughness or lurching behavior. While creeping through town no excess heat entered the cabin, nor any untoward vibrations. The car was as calm as all the new Hyundais and Benzes around us, and the climate control worked strongly and flawlessly, which is more than can be said for lots of new supercars. It does begin to creep forward quite quickly from a stop when you let off the brake, though.AdvertisementAdvertisementWhen it was new I remember the Veyron being criticized for having a harsh ride, but at least in the context of modern cars, it's downright cushy. And the Vitesse has a sportier chassis setup than the standard Veyron, so one of those would be nicer still. This car wore its OEM wheels with the fancy and ultra-expensive Michelin PAX tires, and it didn't tramline on the freeway or get unsettled by expansion joints. Honestly, the Veyron's automatically adjusting hydraulic suspension made it more comfortable on the road than the 992.2 Turbo S I recently had. It certainly felt like a hefty, solid car — and at around 4,400 pounds it is pretty hefty and solid — but it's not the pig it's sometimes made out to be.Daniel Golson/JalopnikVisibility is shockingly good, at least out the windshield and side windows, though the A-pillars are pretty thick and steeply raked, a concession for the car's mega top speed. But once you try looking past the back edge of the side windows, forget about it. The back window is pretty small, with the rear-view mirror mainly giving me a view of the exposed engine bay, the sides of the roof intakes, and the active rear wing that frequently pops up to act as an air brake. The side mirrors are big and very usable, at least, and the peaked front fenders and low hood were a boon when parking or trying to keep the Veyron in its lane.We think of supercars as being total exaggerations in terms of size and proportion, but the Veyron is quite small, relatively speaking. At 175.7 inches long and 47.4 inches tall it's dwarfed by a 992-generation Porsche 911 by a couple inches in each measurement, but its 106.7-inch wheelbase is pretty long for a supercar, a necessity because of the absurd engine layout. The Veyron is wide as hell, too, coming in at 78.7 inches — only a couple inches off from a Lamborghini Revuelto. It feels compact inside, but not at all cramped.No idioms are accurate enoughJames Chrosniak/JalopnikI only got to really bear witness to the acceleration a few times, when merging onto the freeway or passing slower traffic, not even cracking half of its top speed. The highest figures I saw the needle touch on the power gauge were it sweeping between the 800 and 1,000 horsepower marks, which honestly isn't bad. You're not gonna get that full 1,200 horsepower unless you floor it, and it doesn't make that peak amount until 6,400 rpm. Gliding around town, the needle sat at the 50-hp mark.AdvertisementAdvertisementI've driven pretty much all of the quickest modern cars, from models with combustion engines like the Lamborghini Temerario, McLaren 750S and Porsche 911 Turbo S, to fully electric cars like the Rimac Nevera, Lucid Air Sapphire and Porsche Taycan Turbo GT. None of those cars come close to the feeling of accelerating in the Veyron. If you've ever been hit by a surprise wave while enjoying a relaxing float in the ocean, or been pushed out of a plane without warning, or ridden the Tower of Terror blindfolded, or had a roadrunner land an anvil on your head, or taken a rocket into space, that's basically what it's like, just not as intense as what you experience in the Bugatti.It's not the snap of a finger or the blink of an eye; neither of those idioms are accurately rapid enough. There's no time to take a sharp breath or even yell an expletive. The central tachometer's needle seems to snap to its redline without even doing a sweep first, and the ferocity with which the W16 revs is beaten only by how relentlessly the car's velocity increases. All 1,106 pound-feet of torque come in from 3,000 rpm to 5,000 rpm, and there is zero lag from the turbos. The DSG may fade into the background in regular driving, but it rapidly downshifts the instant the car detects you want to go a little faster, then banging off upshifts with the same eagerness, while still remaining smooth as can be. Don't bother trying to use the paddles, as the powertrain is far quicker to react than you'll ever be.The longer you dig in the harder it pulls, an unstoppable force ready to punch out of the atmosphere. If you want to accelerate in a Veyron, you need to be laser-focused on the act of driving, the road you're on and the traffic around you, with a clear view of what's ahead as you're going to approach it much quicker than you think. Sorry to the Vitesse's owner, but my sweaty palms appreciated the Alcantara steering wheel rim.The over-engineering is obviousDaniel Golson/JalopnikWhen not making my brain bleed out my ears from the pressure of all that power being deployed, spending so much of the drive at low speeds gave me time to really appreciate the Veyron's interior, which has held up extremely well not only in terms of design but also ergonomics and overall quality. The leather work is impeccable, as is all the contrasting stitching. Bugatti's exposed carbon fiber has always been the best-looking in the industry, and on this car it's used to nice effect on the dashboard and door panels. OK, so there's no cupholders or under-armrest storage, the door pockets and glove box are pretty small, and there's nowhere to put my phone in the center console. I could get over all of that, and Bugatti will put in a modern Bluetooth system, at least.AdvertisementAdvertisementEvery control inside the car is the best-feeling example of its kind that I've ever touched — or, at least, they all were until I pressed all the Tourbillon's buttons at Car Week. Pretty much everything you interact with is made from real metal, down to adjusting the air vents. The turn signal and wiper stalks are milled from a single piece of aluminum and click wonderfully into place, and the shift paddles are made from magnesium. The dials for the headlights and side mirrors were extraordinarily nice to twist, as were the big knobs on the dash that adjust volume and temperature, all with the same rubberized inserts as the stalks.James Chrosniak/JalopnikThe little switches on the dashboard that adjust more media and climate functions were similarly nice to click up and down, and the rollers for the heated seats were lovely to rotate. The window switches are metal toggles wrapped in leather, and there are other toggles like them on the ceiling. All supercars need some cool controls in the ceiling. Even the lowly buttons for handling mode and launch control, and the big round hazard warning button, all felt good to press.This Vitesse is fitted with the carbon-fiber-backed, manually-adjustable bucket seats that are found in most Veyrons. While I would've preferred the much rarer and cooler Comfort seats, the fixed-headrest buckets were far more comfortable and supportive than I anticipated, and it was easy for me to find a good seating position. It was pretty funny to be staring at a big Bugatti emblem while I yanked on some levers to adjust my seat and steering wheel.I hope you like attentionJames Chrosniak/JalopnikThis may be a very understated spec in terms of Bugattis, but even in a supercar-heavy place like Laguna Beach the Veyron turned every single head. It was like riding around in a four-wheeled black hole, sucking up all of the energy in a half-mile radius. As anyone who's driven something this eye-catching and expensive will know, dealing with the other drivers around me was far more stressful than actually driving the car myself. The blind spots really don't help when trying to make a lane change as multiple pickup truck drivers are gawking at you, but again, the Veyron is just so easy to drive that maneuvering through traffic was no problem. Having such direct steering and so much power under your right foot helps, and everyone lets you merge.AdvertisementAdvertisementFollowing us were an endless stream of dropped jaws, waves, thumbs ups, loud exclamations telling me how awesome the car is — and, of course, basically everyone took photos. Innumerable people must have told their followers and friends and family, "you will not believe what I saw driving through Laguna Beach today." When we stopped in a beach parking lot to snap some of our own, a crowd began to form nearby as people whispered, "is that a Bugatti?" to whoever they were with. Kids went crazy for this thing in particular, even ones who weren't alive during the Veyron's production run.Even with all the attention, after a while, I kind of forgot what I was driving. It just felt like a car, one I could easily live with and use every single day. Then someone would give me a thumbs up, I'd see the Veyron's reflection in a shop window or another car's paint work, or my eyes would focus on the steering wheel and gauges for a moment, and it would hit me. "Oh right, I'm driving a Bugatti right now." It must be like how the aliens feel when they're zooming around our planet in their UFOs.A life-affirming driveJames Chrosniak/JalopnikAn hour later, as I successfully backed the Vitesse into a parking spot at the dealer (I was so proud of myself for not needing to readjust after the first try), it was impossible not to tear up a little. With the original Veyron concept coming out in 1999 and the production car now being 20 years old, it's been the biggest object of my affection for most of my life. It was such a life-affirming experience, especially given how this summer marks my tenth year working in this industry. What a way to ring it in.I've never once thrown away or donated or sold any of my automotive magazines or books; on the contrary, as I've gotten older my collection has only expanded. A hefty chunk of that paper is either entirely dedicated to this car or the marque, or at least features it in some way. Dig on VW Vortex and you'll find forum posts going back decades; look at my social media now and it's still all I want to post about. At Monterey Car Week (and let's be real, most of the time in general), every conversation I had usually came back to the Veyron at some point.James Chrosniak/JalopnikIf you have an opportunity to meet one of your automotive heroes, do it. Maybe you'll be disappointed. But maybe you won't. Maybe your hero car will live up to your extraordinary hype, and then some. It'll transport you back to where you were when that love first started — in my case elementary school, sitting on the couch, reading and rereading every Veyron story I could get my hands on, watching every YouTube video and "Top Gear" clip. I'll always remember seeing one in real life for the first time, which somehow wasn't until I was in college, and now, even more vividly, I'll always remember what it was like to drive one for the first time. And with a bit more luck, hopefully it won't have been the last time.AdvertisementAdvertisementWant more like this? Join the Jalopnik newsletter to get the latest auto news sent straight to your inbox, and follow us or add us as a preferred search source on Google.Read the original article on Jalopnik.