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Originally Posted by Wikipedia

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Gordon Murray, designer of the McLaren F1 (which for many years was the fastest production car ever built) said the following about the Bugatti Veyron in UK auto magazine evo during its development period:

"The most pointless exercise on the planet has got to be this four-wheel-drive 1000 horsepower Bugatti. I think it’s incredibly childish this thing people have about just one element—top speed, standing kilometer or 0-60. It’s about as narrow minded as you can get as a car designer to pick on one element. It’s like saying we’re going to beat the original Mini because we’re going to make a car 10 mph faster on its top speed—but it's two feet longer and 200 kilos heavier. That’s not car designing—that just reeks of a company who are paranoid."

Murray was impressed with the Veyron after he test drove one, but still apprehensive about it in an article he wrote for Road and Track magazine[7].

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After the car had reached production, Murray went on to write an article for another UK auto magazine, Top Gear, retracting a lot of his past criticism of the car.

"One really good thing, and I simply never expected this, is that it does change direction. It hardly feels its weight. Driving it on a circuit I expected a sack of cement, but you can really throw it at tight chicanes."

He also declared in the article that: "The braking is phenomenal, the primary ride and body control are good too" and "It's a huge achievement."[citation needed]

The trend of backtracking on negative comments about the Veyron continued when prominent UK car show host Jeremy Clarkson declared on Top Gear that it was "The best car ever made" after initially saying it was ridiculous and would never exist.[8] He would later extend this by saying he would spend the night with British reality TV star Jade Goody (whom Clarkson strongly dislikes) to get his hands on one.[citation needed]

Additionally, Clarkson described the car as "Utterly, stunningly, mind blowingly, jaw droppingly brilliant" and "a triumph for lunacy over common sense".[9]

The Veyron was proclaimed the Top Gear Magazine Car of the Year for 2005 along with the Toyota Aygo, Peugeot 107 and Citroën C1.

The Veyron was also declared the Grand Award winner for the Autotech category of 2006 by Popular Science magazine.

BTW, for those who don't know...Murray designed the McLaren F1.