An Inconvenient Roof

The Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport can go up to 225 miles per hour with its targa top off.

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Remember the days when a few million dollars could buy a convertible with a roof that folded down and stowed behind the seats? Well, times have changed.

The Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport – a removable-roof version of the original fixed-roof Veyron – will cost $2 million when it goes on sale next year.

Should you be fortunate enough to procure one of the 150 that the French automaker plans to produce, you might be wondering what steps you’ll have to take in order to enjoy this supremely capable car on a sunny day.

Step 1: Remove the roof panel, with some help. (It's a two-person job.)

Step 2: Leave the roof panel in the garage.

Step 3: Drive the car.

Step 4: Pray that it doesn’t rain.

That’s because the Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport isn’t a convertible exactly; it has a targa top, which is a roof panel that can be taken off for driving under the open sky. The most familiar modern targa is likely the Porsche 911 Targa, which has a glass roof that slides open at the touch of a button, like a massive sunroof.

But the Bugatti roof works differently. Because the original Veyron coupe is already such a tightly designed package, there is no way to make the roof fold into the body. Instead, it must be taken off completely.

And since there is nowhere to store it inside the car, owners will have to rely on the weather report and leave the top at home (preferably on a special pedestal) if they want to go for a drive in open-top mode.

Not that they will mind. For buyers who crave such an impractical extravagance of a car, practical considerations are irrelevant, says Wes Brown, a principal at the Los Angeles marketing firm Iceology. “They’re not going to want to have the top up anyway,” he says. “They will want it down so people can see them.”

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Should it rain, the one saving grace is a temporary clip-on fabric roof that stows in the car, so owners can protect the very expensive leather-lined and magnesium alloy-trimmed interior.

According to Bugatti, the Grand Sport’s transparent polycarbonate top was engineered by roof specialist Webasto, the German firm that created the Volkswagen Eos' marvelous aluminum-and-glass folding hardtop. (Volkswagen AG is Bugatti’s parent company.)

The Grand Sport’s roof is much less complicated than the Eos’, however. It is essentially a square of high-tech plastic and does not have any functional bracing to connect the windshield to the rear of the car. To combat the loss of structural integrity that results from cutting off the Veyron’s metal roof, Bugatti has tightened the chassis and beefed up other reinforcements.

A targa variant of the Veyron had long been rumored, but Bugatti did not officially announce that it would build the car until recent weeks. It auctioned off chassis number 001 of the new production model at the 2008 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, for a winning bid of $3.19 million.

Calling the auction price “phenomenal,” Jeff Bennett, automotive marketing professor at Northwood University in Midland, Mich., said the Bugatti brand has a cache that elevates its hand-built creations above mere cars. “It’s like looking at a Picasso,” Bennett says. “It has intrinsic value because of the art.”

The Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport is expected to go on sale officially in March as a 2009 model.

The car’s interior is trimmed in leather and polished aluminum.

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But good luck getting one. Even with the economic doldrums, the multimillion-dollar sticker price is not putting the brakes on demand, according to Iceology’s Brown. “You know that every single one is sold,” Brown says. “Those who have money continue to show that they have money. The appetite for spending and for buying more toys really is not damping at all.”

Besides the fact that only 150 are to be made, nearly one-third of the entire line is reserved for current Bugatti owners.

That’ll make it even more rare than the original Veyron. About 160 of those have been built so far, with 240 more on order.

Such exclusivity is part of the appeal, says Milton Pedraza, the chief executive officer of the Luxury Institute, a New York market research firm focusing on affluent consumers. “The ultra-luxury car is an accessory,” Pedraza says. “It makes a statement about how unique you are.”

Brown agrees. “When you’re dealing with this level of affluence, it’s all about having something that others don’t,” he says. “It’s about being in a rarified special club.”

But more than limited numbers make this machine special. The Grand Sport will be capable of performance in line with its namesake. Besides the tweaked chassis and sky view, the targa version doesn’t differ radically from the coupe, equipment-wise. It will use the same juggernaut of an engine, an 8.0-liter, 16-cylinder, double-V supplemented by four turbochargers. Total output will remain at 1,001 horsepower, which is enough thrust to get to 62 miles per hour in 2.5 seconds.

The most familiar targa is likely the Porsche 911 Targa, which costs less than $100,000.

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The Grand Sport would have weighed more than the original Veyron because of the extra structural reinforcement, but Bugatti is offsetting the gain with the strategic use of carbon fiber in the doors and hood.

The maximum recommended speed will depend on whether the targa top is on. The original Veyron is one of the fastest production cars on earth, capable of cracking 250 mph without breaking too much of a sweat, and the Grand Sport can match that with its top on. But topless, it is limited to “only” 225 miles per hour because the car’s revised aerodynamics make higher speeds unsafe. Still, that is enough to make this is the fastest roadster in the world, according to Bugatti.

So here's a word of advice to the forgetful motorist who might look skyward at some highly illegal speed and notice the missing roof: Yes, it's possible that you were driving so fast that the roof flew off. But more likely it's back at the house.

Cindy Yeung and Hannah Elliott contributed to this article.