CarBrandLogos archive · Bugatti · 2016
Half again as powerful as the car that had already gone too far.
Discover the storyPhoto: Calreyn88 · CC BY-SA 4.0
The story
Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Bugatti Chiron, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.
01
Replacing the Veyron was a strange problem: the target had already been hit. Bugatti's answer, launched in 2016 and named after the Monegasque racing driver Louis Chiron, was to keep the 8.0-litre quad-turbocharged W16 and the seven-speed Ricardo dual-clutch gearbox but rebuild almost everything around them, raising output by roughly half and finding a way to use it.
Bugatti Chiron, IAA 2017, Frankfurt · Matti Blume · CC BY-SA 4.0
02
The carbon monocoque was new and considerably stiffer, the turbochargers were staged so two operate at low revs and all four higher up, and the cooling and braking systems were scaled to match. The team under Achim Anscheidt, with Sasha Selipanov responsible for much of the exterior, gave the car a C-shaped side line that wraps the door and doubles as the intake path to the rear radiators — a piece of styling that is also the reason the car can cool itself.
Bugatti Chiron, GIMS 2018, Le Grand-Saconnex · Matti Blume · CC BY-SA 4.0
03
In 2019 a longer, tail-modified prototype called the Super Sport 300+ became the first production-derived car to exceed 300 mph, driven by Andy Wallace at Ehra-Lessien. Bugatti then withdrew from the speed race, declaring the point made, and spent the rest of the Chiron's run on derivatives: the track-focused Pur Sport, the long-tailed Super Sport, and coachbuilt one-offs including the Divo, the single La Voiture Noire and the two Centodieci-style tributes to earlier cars.
2020 Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+ Prototype · Liam Walker · CC BY-SA 4.0
04
Production ran to 2024 and the full allocation sold. Under Mate Rimac's stewardship of the brand, the Chiron's successor, the Tourbillon, abandons the W16 entirely — which makes the Chiron the last of a specific and probably unrepeatable idea about how to build a fast car.
At a glance
Produced
2016–2024Engine
8.0 L quad-turbocharged W16Body
2-door coupéTechnical specification
Lineage
Contemporaries from the 2010s
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