2006 Bugatti 16.4 on 2040-cars

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Bugatti plots PHEV Chiron successor with more athletic proportions

Bugatti is ready to close the W16 chapter of its history; the Mistral roadster it unveiled in August 2022 is the final street-legal car powered by the quad-turbocharged engine. What's next remains shrouded in secrecy, but the French firm gave Autoblog a few hints of what to expect. First, let's dispel a myth: The Chiron's successor will not be electric. Achim Anscheidt, Bugatti's design director, confirmed that the model — whose name hasn't been announced yet — will be powered by a plug-in hybrid powertrain. Rimac has previously described the drivetrain as "heavily electrified," but precise technical details such as horsepower and layout haven't been made public. All we know for sure at this stage is that the W16 won't return and that many key components under the body (including the monocoque and the subframes) will be new. In terms of design, it sounds like Anscheidt instructed his team to balance evolutionary and revolutionary approaches. "[The car] will certainly be tailored to one or the other aspect of a hybrid. We see the potential to improve the overall automotive gesture of the car," he said. Dialing in new proportions is something his team wasn't able to do when it designed the Chiron, because parts like the monocoque and the doors were carried over from the Veyron. Beyond the overall shape, Anscheidt noted he'd like to see Bugatti's design language get leaner and more athletic, but there's a limit to this stretch. Regardless of what the Chiron's successor looks like, it needs to stay true to the ambivalent character of "the automotive Beauty and Beast" and be instantly recognizable as a Bugatti "In comparison to other hyper-sports cars, Bugatti always created its own sovereign segment. It was always slightly different, never trying to be a race car for the road. It is the ultimate GT. That should not change from one day to the other. We don't want to become somebody else, but we're opening a new tech chapter which is a challenge as well as an opportunity," he clarified. The cabin will evolve as well, but it won't necessarily follow the industry's ongoing shift toward wall-to-wall screens. "When you look at today's cars, it becomes very apparent that there are screens everywhere. Where is this leading us? Yes, I think that customers deserve to have full entertainment in their daily driver. This is the [interior design trend] of the automotive industry, and we don't want to question that. However, I wonder: who still has an iPhone 3?

Short-tailed Bugatti Chiron Super Sport spied testing

One of our spy photographers has caught a rather odd Bugatti Chiron prototype out testing. It features no camouflage, which reveals that it seems to fuse a regular Chiron with the Chiron Super Sport 300+. And that begs the question, what is this? The front of the car is all Super Sport 300+. It has the revised air intakes, clusters of round vents in the hood, and big vents in the fenders. But unlike that top speed challenger, this has a normal, truncated tail from the regular Chiron. In fact, everything from the front fenders back appears to be regular Chiron. The one difference is the exhaust, which consists of two oval tips that most resemble the tailpipes of the Chiron Pur Sport. But the rear fascia is definitely regular Chiron, not the revised design of the Pur Sport. So what is it? It could simply be a mash-up of leftover Chiron parts for some kind of test mule. It could also be shortened Chiron Super Sport 300+ that will share the same 1,600-horsepower engine as the high-speed car, but without the cost of the extra aerodynamics. Whatever it is, Bugatti's testers evidently weren't happy about the spy photographer catching the car, as he reports the car was hurried into a trailer and security sent to confront the photographer and stop him from sharing the photos. So it seems Bugatti has something interesting coming, whether it looks exactly like this or just has this car's underpinnings. Related Video    

Unique Bugatti Chiron Pur Sport shows off customizing program

It's strange, but there's really no shortage of incredible supercars to pick from nowadays. Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren, Pagani, Koenigsegg, Bugatti, Aston Martin and Porsche, among others, are continuously rolling out ever faster, rarer and more unusual supercars. And as a result, buyers want more than just a choice of paint and interior colors to pick from. They want unique color schemes to stand out from the other supercar owners. Automakers such as McLaren have learned this with programs like MSO, and now Bugatti is launching a service called Sur Mesure, which translates to "tailored." And its first customer car is the Bugatti Chiron Pur Sport GP Sur Mesure you see above. According to Bugatti, the car is a tribute to racing driver Louis Chiron, who won the 1931 French Grand Prix driving a Bugatti Type 51. The custom Chiron Pur Sport features the same style "32" on the outside and embroidered on the seat backs as Chiron's Type 51. That number is hand-painted on the doors, as are the "EB" logo patterns on the front and rear fenders. Based on photos of the paint process, it seems some intricate masking was used, requiring careful removal after painting. The exterior paint color is a new hue that was created to match that of 1930s Bugatti race cars. Inside, the Chiron Pur Sport is mostly black and red Alcantara. The most unique aspects are the door panels that feature the same type of "EB" pattern as on the fenders, but this time with embroidery. The car also gets black anodized aluminum trim panels with silver logos. No pricing was given for this one-off Bugatti, nor were any estimates for services given. This is likely because every project will be different depending on the customers' ideas, so the amount of time and cost will vary. Seeing as customers will be guided through the process and receive truly custom cars at the end, ones based on cars that already have seven-figure price tags, the costs must be mighty high. Related Video: