THE BUGATTI TOURBILLON ARRIVES IN ALL OF ITS NORMALLY ASPIRATED 1,800 HP GLORY.
20 years ago when my Mk4 GTi was the pinnacle of automotive excellence, Bugatti released the Veyron. It was the birth of a new segment of car - the hypercar - and it was admittedly a bit better than my turbocharged 20-valve 4-banger. The Veyron was wide, long and low and had a design that was so far removed from what everyone else was making at the time, but it was the underpinnings and the powerplant that were completely bonkers. Some clever engineers in a basement somewhere managed to design a monstrous 8.0-litre powerplant with a W-configuration and a total of sixteen cylinders. As if that wasn’t enough, they clapped four turbochargers into the mix and released an all-wheel drive production car with 1,001 hp (736 kW) on tap. There were loads of rumours about the car being produced and sold at a loss, the cost of manufacture exceeded what the cars sold for, which is believable and also a little mind-blowing. The car cost $1,200,000 in 2004, and seeing one change hands for double that isn’t uncommon these days. After being the top dog for 12 years, the Veyron was retired and replaced by the Chiron, which was, as expected, an upgrade in every way possible. It had the same design architecture with a tweak here and a nip and tuck there, but you could clearly see that it was an evolution of the Veyron. Many thought a successor would never be realised because of the most involved, but since the car was created, YouTube grew exponentially and all of a sudden there were more and more millionaires in the world, and a lot of them wanted a Bugatti. The Chiron kept the same quad-turbocharged 8.0-litre W16 powerplant supplying power to the same four wheels via a very similar drivetrain and transmission, except this time the power figure rose to an astounding 1,500 hp - the first production car ever to do so. As you’d expect from a powerplant like this, the Chiron was blisteringly fast. This is the world of hypercars though, and when the Chiron was about to head off to retirement, a replacement was alluded to, and it’s finally here.
What you see here is the Bugatti Tourbillon, and with the styling it has there is no denying that it’s a further evolution of the Veryon and then the Chiron. It’s got the same overall look and feel, but it looks like it’s been doing cardio because all the flabby bits now have a chiselled, sharp look. It’s pretty damn amazing. Mate Rimac, CEO of Bugatti, said: “The development of the Bugatti Tourbillon was guided at every step by the 115 years of Bugatti history and the words of Ettore Bugatti himself. His mantras ‘if comparable it is no longer Bugatti’ and ‘nothing is too beautiful’ was a guiding path for me personally, as well as the design and engineering teams looking to create the next exciting era in the Bugatti hypersports car story. Icons like the Type 57SC Atlantic, renowned as the most beautiful car in the world, the Type 35, the most successful racing car ever, and the Type 41 Royale, one of the most ambitious luxury cars of all time, provide our three pillars of inspiration. Beauty, performance and luxury formed the blueprint for the Tourbillon; a car that was more elegant, more emotive and more luxurious than anything before it. Quite simply, incomparable. And just like those icons of the past, it wouldn’t be simply for the present, or even for the future, but Pour l’éternité – for eternity.” Styling is subjective, what I think looks great might look odd to someone else and something that someone “oohs” at might make me vomit in my mouth. So we’ll skip the design and the features and focus on the powerplant - it’s the first one in 20 years not using the quad-turbocharged W16. The Tourbillon still uses a sixteen-cylinder powerplant but it’s now in a V configuration instead of a W, and the capacity was increased to 8.3 litres and the turbos were relegated to the junk pile. But this is 2024 and that means someone managed to sneak in some electric power. Three electric motors are in play, and the provide a whopping 800 hp of power to add to the V16’s 1,000 hp. That means the Tourbillon is rated at 1,800 hp (1,324 kW) - the first production car to do so. The performance stats still need to be released, but so far it seems the Tourbillon could get to 100 km/h in less than 2 seconds, could hit 200 km/h in under 5 seconds, 300 km/h in less than 10 seconds and should hit 400 km/h in less than 25 seconds. The car also has the coolest instrument cluster, ever. EVAR!
Take a look at the YouTube video that briefly shows off the replacement to the well-known Bugatti Chiron that comes in the form of the all-new but still rather similar-looking Tourbillon. It retains 16 cylinders but besides that, the new powerplant is nothing like the outgoing one: The BUGATTI TOURBILLON: an automotive icon ‘Pour l’éternité’ | Bugatti
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