You won’t remember the moment you first hit 200mph on the public road, because it’s almost impossible to know that it has happened. At over a quarter the speed of sound, if you look down at your dials for just one second you will have travelled nearly a hundred metres. I think I only looked down twice.
My memory of the whole event is fractured; a Veyron with the afterburners lit has curious physiological effects on you, raising your heart rate to machine-gun speeds and distorting your peripheral vision so your surroundings seem to stretch as they come rushing at you faster than you’ve ever seen before. I remember the weird contrast between the uncontrolled acceleration and the total control of the suspension, the steering, and later the brakes. And I remember the noise; deeper and louder and angrier than any other road car, like a choir made up entirely of pissed-off basso profundos, overlaid with the fizz of the four turbochargers.