At $2 million, the Bugatti Veyron is a seriously expensive car with equally expensive maintenance – an oil change alone costs $21,000. The car’s not exactly a looker, either. But the Veyron is an exceptional kind of insane, and the world could use more of it.

The Veyron was birthed as an exercise in the limits of engineering. Ferdinand Piech, prior chairman of the Volkswagen Group that owns Bugatti, was scoffed at when he asked his engineers to build a 1,000 horsepower road car. But he persevered, making it happen no matter the cost – VW reportedly lost $6.25 million on every Veyron they sold. With 450 cars made, that’s as expensive as stubbornness comes.
The end result was made to be as simple to drive as your run-of-the-mill family sedan. Some reviewers even criticized it for a lack of emotion. But this easy-to-use machine can achieve a top speed of 253 miles per hour, accelerating at a mind-bending rate along the way. By the time a typical car reaches 60 mph, the Veyron is traveling at more than twice that speed. And that was before the Super Sport came along – a variant of the Veyron that was put on a 110 pound diet and given 20% more power. The Super Sport still holds the title for the world’s fastest car, with a 268 mph top speed. But the tires can’t last long at that speed, so production models were restricted to a mere 258 mph.
Sitting inside the Veyron is a joy as well, with the interior pairing leather a...