Review : The Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse 1/14 RC Car

Well, I never considered myself as a fan of the Bugatti Veyron. I didn’t like it when it came out in 2005. I didn’t like its convertible sibling, the Grand Sport. I never thought the Veyron was a looker. I felt a deep revulsion every time I saw one in a car magazine or in a video game. I always considered the Veyron as one of the ugliest cars ever made. I thought it was more of a gimmick than a car. It had an 8-liter, quad-turbocharged, W16 engine that produced 1001 horsepower. It broke the production car top speed record and unsurprisingly it created a fanbase that started drooling over this achievement. “HURR DURR MUH VEYRON 408 KPH THIS AND THAT”. “THIS IS THE BEST CAR EVER MADE”.This circle jerk made me despise the car even more.

The Grand Sport Vitesse is a facelifted Grand Sport with the Super Sport engine that outputs 1200 bhp. This intrigued me with its new two-tone color scheme along with the new bumpers. Of course, it broke another record too, by becoming the fastest convertible ever with the top speed of 408 KPH with no roof.

As I said before, I’m not a Veyron enthusiast. I bought this R/C car because I liked its new color. I find its little orange wheels appealing. I think they are cute. It comes in other two-tone colors such as blue - black, white - sky blue as well as in plain orange or blue. The car isn’t particularly striking to look at and I think it’s hideous in other colors, but this particular color scheme makes this thing likeable

There are Bugatti logos all over its exterior and inside the interior. You can find them on the wheel center caps, on the fuel cap, on both bumpers, on the seat headrests and on the steering wheel. You will also find the ‘W16’ writing on the engine. And yes, the engine has no cover so you can see it clearly and even touch it. It has working headlights and tail lights. But there isn’t an extra button to turn them on when the car isn’t running.

The interior is impeccably detailed. The steering wheel, two seats, dashboard, center console are all there. You would only expect to get this quality or an interior like this one in an extravagant scale model but this inexpensive remote-control car offers almost the same for much less.

This R/C car isn’t full of gimmicks but it has a useful feature. It has a built-in USB charging option that obviates the need for purchasing new batteries every five minutes. Just open the cover underneath the car, pull out the USB cable and plug it anywhere to charge it up. The tail lights will blink when it’s charging which I think is cool. The battery life is pretty good. I charged it for an hour and it lasted for 54 minutes of intensive testing.

I tested this car over a period of 3 days on my rooftop that I like to consider as the Paul Ricard for my toys. The first day of testing was very hot and sunny. I ran it until it ran out of juice. And on the second day, I drag raced it against the Lamborghini Huracan (that I reviewed a year ago) at night. The Veyron came first in every run and it beat the Huracan’s best time by a 0.5 second margin. It wasn’t properly charged on the second day so I had charged it fully before I started the final day of testing at midnight. I did some straight run on that drag race distance. It kept getting faster. After 5-6 runs, it shattered its previous record by 0.7 second. So, it’s fast, very fast despite being a toy grade R/C car. I lapped it about 40 times after I’d done the drag runs and I reckon it even handled better than the P1 GTR, perhaps because it was fitted with normal road tires.

It’s an awesome toy for kids and the kid in you. You are going to love it, even if you are a Veyron fan or not.