Bugatti Bolide Track Car Further Expands The Definition Of Bugatti

Stephan Winklemann learned his licks elevating Lamborghini. VW Group dispatched him to Molsheim, France to run Bugatti, where he found one car, one chassis, one powertrain, and one narrowly defined purpose. Bugatti had long ago met the original goal: to build the fastest production car in the world also capable of navigating cosmopolitan streets on the way to the opera house.

Veyron delivered, if just barely after years of development on the cooling system for the W16 engine. Veyron’s successor, Chiron, is so docile, so thoroughly refined that an owner can toddle it down to the bodega to pick up a bottle or two of red. I’ve been in Chiron with no less than Bugatti development driver and Le Mans winner Andy Wallace, and it’s comfortable and luxurious. Punch it and in seconds you’re hurtling past 100 mph.

At Lamborghini, Winkelmann learned that when selling ultra-expensive high-performance vehicles, small batches are best, elevating rarity and value. He learned that small batches and short runs of vehicles with discernible engineering, design and performance differences were essential to sustained sales growth and greater profitability. Give the customers what they want.

Winkelmann also recognized the potential of VR goggles in the design studio and immediately understood that he had just the design team to exploit the technology. He cracked the whip on Achim Anscheidt, Bugatti’s long-serving head of design, and also put whip to the sorcerer’s apprentice, Frank Heyl. Anscheidt and Heyl learned the goggles and produced the Divo in 6 months, retaining the engine-cooling pathways proven in the Chiron. Divo has just completed its production run of 40 examples.

Next came the one-off La Voiture Noir, or LVN as it is known at Maison Bugatti. And then the most daring to date, the Cien Dieci, which I first saw at the Bugatti Pebble Beach corral two years ago. For Cien Dieci, the designers were allowed to turn the tables on the engineers and force dramatic changes to airflow vital to the engine’s long-term survival. And it worked.

Winkelmann has further expanded the brand with the Chiron Pur Sport, lowering the top speed to mere Lamborghini Aventador territory, but radically enhancing the Chiron chassis’ handling capability. Out of high-altitude and better suited to Midnight Grand Prix street racing, that’s the Pur Sport. When I drove one a few months ago, even under onerous and strictly controlled circumstances, the chassis spoke clearly. Pur Sport is a dynamic sports car, not merely the most luxurious meteor ever conceived.

And now, at the convergence of sales, marketing and product planning, a masterful display of radical design meeting functional aerodynamics: Bugatti Bolide, which was first produced as a “few-off” car and will now enter series production with a maximum of 40 examples. Yes, it’s a Yas Island toy, a toy for anyone with access to a racetrack country club. But what an extraordinary toy.

The W16 4-turbo engine runs on 110-octane racing fuel and produces 1850 horsepower. Bugatti’s engineers tuned the vehicle for higher revs, and sharp response to the throttle.

The cooling system for the turbochargers, engine, transmission, and differential are also greatly modified, knowing that this car will not just be hurtling in a straight line, but carrying high side loads. I’d love to know how the oil pumps and baffling in the oil sump have been modified to ensure there is always ample oil keeping the engine happy.

Bolide is into its final stages of development, and the resulting car will be in line with international FIA safety standards. Safety features include HANS system compatibility, an automatic fire extinguishing system, pressure refueling with a fuel bladder, central wheel locking, and a 6-point safety belt system.

Bolide is radically lighter than its luxury brothers, weighing only 3,196 pounds, which puts it within a couple of hundred pounds of track-focused supercars like McLaren 765 Longtail, Ferrari Tributo, and other such track specials.

Customers putting money down during Monterey Car Week can expect a car within three years, or less. Price for all this rare fun? Four million Euros, or $4.72 million at current exchange rates.