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 or standing kilometre 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 foot longer and 200 kilos heavier. That’s not car designing—that just reeks of a company who are paranoid."
Murray was less hasty about the Veyron after it came out and he test drove one, nearly praising it in an article he wrote about it in Road and Track magazine.
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."
