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By A. Craig Copetas
Aug. 3 (Bloomberg) -- ``Welcome to the 350 Club,'' warns
Detlef Huebner, strapped into the ``survival cell'' of his 1
million-euro ($1.28 million) Bugatti Veyron 16.4, the world's
fastest street-legal automobile. ``What are you nervous about?''
The rest of Huebner's words are garbled, overwhelmed by G-
force and the physical disorientation of exceeding 350 kilometers
per hour (217 miles per hour) without time to exhale.
Huebner doesn't flinch. The 51-year-old chief executive
officer of D.Logistics AG, the Hofheim, Germany-based industrial-
and consumer-goods packing firm, pushes the luxury muscle car
toward its recorded threshold of 403 kilometers per hour.
Ten radiators cool the Bugatti's rear-mounted 8-liter
engine, a 1,001 horsepower W-16 locomotive that weighs 550
kilograms (1,212 pounds) and produces 746,000 watts of power, the
same sum of energy as a World War II Japanese Zero fighter plane
firing all guns at full throttle. A human exerting that amount of
oomph would burn 641,000 calories and evaporate instantaneously.
``It's very easy to take the wrong decision when investing
in stocks and bonds,'' Huebner says, easing back, allowing the
``light blue'' and ``creamy white'' Veyron to gobble up blacktop.
``Not so with a Bugatti.''
Huebner isn't the only corporate chieftain driving an
investment vehicle that matures at a third of the speed of sound.
The Bugatti division of Wolfsburg, Germany-based automaker
Volkswagen AG so far has signed up 120 buyers and since April
delivered 60 vehicles to a classified collection of clients who
rank explosive speed and habitat destruction low on their list of
perils.
Such is the legacy of Ettore Bugatti, the early 20th-century
Italian builder of planes, trains and 26 models of automobiles.
Everything Bugatti designed went hellishly fast, including a
2,400 horsepower eight-passenger luxury submarine engineered in
1925 to cross the Atlantic in 50 hours.

`The Ultimate'

``Bugatti is the ultimate,'' says Miami-based super-car
collector and Bugatti owner Michael Fux, who founded the mattress
company Sleep Innovations Inc., based in West Long Branch, New
Jersey. ``I turned on the ignition and went 150 mph in heavy
traffic before I could blink, 188 mph in 14 seconds. There was no
question of spending 1 million euros on the car.''
In the United Arab Emirates oasis town of Buraimi, Class
Motors manager Mohammad Jabr says he has sold a Veyron to a
member of the country's royal family for 300,000 euros above the
non-negotiable 1 million-euro factory price. At an auction in
London in May, a Veyron brought in 1.55 million euros.
Back in the 350 clubhouse, hurtling through a hazed German
countryside, Huebner slaps the steering wheel. ``The Bugatti will
only increase in value, but now isn't the time to sell,'' he
says.

370 Kilometers per Hour

``This car wasn't built for auction or the racetrack,''
Huebner says. ``It's a street car that can't be beaten. It lets
you drive to work comfortably at 370 kilometers per hour on
normal roads. No one will believe what this car can do unless
they drive it.''
Bugatti plans to build 500 Veyrons at its atelier in
Molsheim, France, and the sales pitch doesn't trumpet spiffy
marketing gimmicks, just short numerical bursts. Seven gears.
Four turbochargers. Faster than a 240 mph McLaren Formula One
racecar. A fuel consumption of 1.33 gallons per minute. Enough
acceleration to travel 100 meters (328 feet) in less than one
second. An automatically deployed rear wing that provides more
than 500 pounds of down force and tilts to provide additional
braking power.
``The printed stats put Bugatti's metric horsepower at 1,001
and 986 horsepower by the U.S. standard,'' Huebner laughs.
``Wrong. I've spoken to the engineers, and using either
configuration the horsepower is well in excess of 1,001. The
Bugatti is so fast,'' he adds, ``that it's difficult to see
ahead.''

No Speed Limits

Yet Huebner says piloting the Bugatti in a country where
many highways have no speed limits poses another problem for
those intent on unleashing the car for a potential velocity in
excess of 400 kilometers per hour and sustaining that speed for
the 12 minutes it would take for the fuel to run out.
Under optimum conditions, the Bugatti has the brawn to make
a 50-mile trip in 12 minutes, transforming the 35-mile commute
between Wall Street and Greenwich, Connecticut, into a dash of
about 8 minutes, if not faster.
``Some people buy super cars to have another gold chain
around their neck,'' Huebner says. ``I'm passionate about the
engineering that makes this speed happen. It's a level of
performance that only a petrol head can understand.''
Grasping the calculus of Huebner's daredevil delight
requires a pencil and begins at Volkswagen's Ehra Lessien proving
grounds, a track with a 5.59 mile straightaway, more than a half
mile longer than the drag line available at the Bonneville Salt
Flats in Utah, where in 1970 the world land-speed record of 622.4
mph was set by Gary Gabelich in a jet-powered car with a
parachute-brake system.

Veyron's Capability

Equipped with carbon ceramic disc brakes and all-wheel
drive, a Bugatti traveling at 250 mph requires 10 seconds and a
third of a mile to come to a complete stop.
At Ehra Lessien, Huebner achieved 248.5 mph before running
out of room. Although the Bugatti's performance specifications
register the Veyron's top speed in the 253 mph neighborhood,
Huebner says the car wanted to go much faster.
``There's no place on Earth with the straightaway required
for the ultimate Veyron test,'' explains Bugatti communications
chief George Teller. ``You'd have to take the car to some place
like the moon to find out.''
Huebner says he would be willing to bring the oxygen.
``There will never be another like the Veyron,'' Huebner
marvels, reflecting on the certitude required to spend 1 million
euros on a car capable of reaching 250 mph in 55.6 seconds. ``My
mother said I wasn't very well educated, but I became a
successful entrepreneur to make money to buy super cars.''

`Family Affair'

For Huebner and his two sons, Dennis, 22, and Marc, 15, the
Bugatti's sleek baroque lines and lavish bespoke interior played
a minor role in making the Veyron the swiftest high-octane
thoroughbred in the family stable of 30 luxury hot rods. They
include a Maybach, a selection of race-ready Porsches and
Ferraris and two Ford GTs.
``Super cars are a family affair that keep us all very
close,'' Huebner says in the stillness of his garage. ``You can't
put a price on that.''