The Bug Club
For a few moments, we could have been in a one-make Veyron race on the streets of Abu Dhabi, blasting down the Corniche road, the magnificent coastal city stretch with the bright blue waters of the Gulf and a golden beach on one side, and spectacular high-rise buildings on the other, and there was no speed limit because the police had closed it for us. Nice.
We'd rounded a bend, and not one but two Veyrons slid left to right into place in my Veyron's rear-view mirror, red and chrome, one behind the other, snick snick, both dropping back briefly as I nailed the throttle an instant before they did, then running up to 150mph in a blink, three of the greatest supercars the world has ever seen,
together in one of the most sleek and modern cities in the world. With the blessing of the cops. Driving doesn't get a hell of a lot better than this.
Three Veyrons. No one's seen this before. And one of them is a chrome Pur Sang special edition, one of only five in the world. Beyond motor shows, no one's seen one of these before, either. It could only have happened here in Abu Dhabi, the richest of the United Arab Emirates, and it happened almost by accident.
We had a Koenigsegg flown in from Sweden, as you've read, but the Veyron we'd organised to meet it in battle had dropped out at the last minute. So the call went out, and it went right to the top. We'll talk about that a bit later, but, in an almost unprecedented act of generosity, we ended up with three 1,000,000-euro Veyrons. Two more than we needed. And three's most definitely better than one when it's Veyrons.
And then the Koenigsegg wouldn't start. Seriously. A silly little problem with a fuel line meant it was sucking down vapour, coughing and spluttering, as the police closed down the roads and the helicopter cameras spooled up, ready for the
shoot. Aargh. The plan was to shoot the four cars together, but this meant we had to do the Koenigsegg versus the Veyron the next day in the mountains, and just concentrate on these three for the city shoot. It didn't matter much.
Three great stretches of road were closed for us in succession in the early hours of a Friday morning, the equivalent of a Sunday in the Arab world and the quietest time of the week. This was great. The welcome for our team from Abu Dhabi was truly overwhelming - for them to go to all this trouble just shows you what these guys are all about. Friendship, hospitality and cars. And they're dead serious about their car culture here.
Look at the rear wing of an F1 Ferrari, and you'll see Etihad Airways written across it, national carrier for the UAE and the guys who flew our Koenigsegg. Look at the flanks of a works Ford World Rally Car and you'll see Abu Dhabi there, in bold.
This is a city and a country which will soon be very much on the international stage, and cars and motorsport figure large in their plans - the first Abu Dhabi Grand Prix next October won't do any harm, either. It's very likely we'll be back here, doing something even bigger and better. Watch this space.
Back to the shoot. First, a long stretch of 30th street (Khaleej Al-Arabi) was closed. Here we ran
to about 150mph in convoy, the cars utterly stable and solid at this speed, the equivalent of doing 70mph in a family hatch, a giggle. Then the Corniche road was made available to us, which included a couple of nice long sweepers that the Veyrons hardly noticed.
But, boy, it felt good slamming the car through them, feeling the g pile on as the 'handling mode' rear wing bit into the air. Then we ran down the breakwater, which runs out into the Gulf at right angles to the Corniche, and links the main part of the city with Marina Village. Check it out on Google Maps - it's a cool place. As a part of our plan to shoot Veyron vs Koenigsegg, it would have been tremendous - but with three Veyrons,
it was somehow even better.
As the cars were loaded back onto their trucks, it occurred to me that allowing a few strangers to have a go in my £850,000 supercar might not come too easy to me. Luckily, these guys are obviously much more generous than I'll ever be.
They're also proper petrolheads that we can safely say - simply by the fact that you're reading dtremexars.blogspot.com - that you'd get along just fine with.
The first, who owns the Pur Sang, is a member of the royal family, and an all-round good guy. The other two Veyrons belong to Sheikh Hazza Bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan. Yes the other two - the white and red ones. They're into cars!
A full and heartfelt my team shout must therefore go to these two car-loving sheikhs for making it possible, and no mistake. Yes, it's very likely we'll be back. Very likely indeed.
Photography by Lee Brimble
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