and the greatest car we will ever see in our lifetime", comparing it to Concorde and S.S. Great Britain. He noted that the production cost of a Veyron was , but was sold to customers for just . Volkswagen designed the car merely as a technical exercise. James May described the Veyron as "our Concorde moment". Clarkson test drove the Veyron from Alba in northern Italy to London in a race against May and Richard Hammond who made the journey in a Cessna 182 aeroplane. A few episodes later, May drove the Veyron at the VW test track and took it to its top speed of . In series 10, Hammond raced the Veyron against the Eurofighter Typhoon and lost. He also raced the car in Series 13 against a McLaren F1 driven by The Stig in a one-mile (1.6 km) drag race in Abu Dhabi. The commentary focused on Bugatti's "amazing technical achievement" versus the "non-gizmo" racing purity of the F1. While the F1 was quicker off the line and remained ahead until both cars were travelling at approximately , the Bugatti overtook its competitor from and emerged the victor. Hammond has stated that he did not use the Veyron's launch control in order to make the race more interesting. The Veyron also won the award for "Car of the Decade" in Top Gear end of 2010 award show. Clarkson commented, "It was a car that just rewrote the rule book really, an amazing piece of engineering, a genuine Concorde moment". When the standard version was tested in 2008, it did not reach the top of the lap time leader board, with a time of 1:18.3, which was speculated as being due to the car's considerable weight disadvantage against the other cars towards the top. In 2010 the SuperSport version achieved the fastest ever time of 1:16.8 (dethroned the Gumpert Apollo S, replaced by the Ariel Atom V8 in 2011), as well as being taken to a verified average top speed of by Raphanel on the programme, thenceforth retaking its position as the fastest production car in the world. Martin Roach In 2011, Martin Roach's book Bugatti Veyron: A Quest for Perfection – The Story of the Greatest Car in the World took the stance that the car had now become so famous that it is effectively a bona fide celebrity. The book follows its author as he attempts