Latest news with #Veyron
TimesLIVE
5 days ago
- Automotive
- TimesLIVE
Programme Solitaire delivers one-off Bugatti Brouillard masterpiece
Are you finding your Bugatti a bit boring? Maybe it's just too similar to your neighbour's, or perhaps it's blending into the general malaise of the Saturday morning mall parking lot. Well, you'll be pleased to know the French carmaker has launched something called Programme Solitaire — a bespoke in-house commissioning service that, for a small fee, will reimagine your vehicle with custom bodywork and personalised interior details. Limited to two builds a year to ensure exclusivity, the first creation to leave the Programme Solitaire skunkworks is the Brouillard. Named after company founder Ettore Bugatti's beloved horse, it reinterprets a passionate client's Mistral with a revised exterior that boasts smoother lines and a lighter, more dynamic silhouette — one that appears lower and longer than the standard car. The lower third of the vehicle is rendered in exposed carbon fibre while the top two-thirds wear a bespoke satin-green paint. It also sports larger, more efficient air intakes to help keep underbody temperatures in check, a fixed ducktail spoiler, a redesigned rear diffuser and dual roof scoops that nod to the Veyron — the first Bugatti to feature the W16 engine. The standard Mistral's open top has been replaced with a more elegant glass roof. Embroidered horse motifs adorn the door panels and seat backrests. Image: Supplied Inside, custom-woven fabrics sourced from Paris merge with green-tinted carbon fibre and a greater number of machined aluminium components. The gear shifter, for example, is milled from a single block of the lightweight metal and features a glass insert containing a miniature sculpture of the Brouillard's four-legged namesake. Embroidered horse motifs adorn the door panels and seat backrests while the seats are tailored to the owner's preference and finished with a unique leather patch layout. Set to debut at Monterey Car Week, the Bugatti Brouillard offers a tantalising glimpse of what Programme Solitaire can deliver — perfectionist-level personalisation that will no doubt have many of the world's wealthiest Bugatti owners reaching for their chequebooks.
Forbes
7 days ago
- Automotive
- Forbes
Driving The 282mph Bugatti Mistral, The World's Fastest Roadster
Fewer than 150 people have driven the $5.8 million, 16-cylinder, 1600bhp, 282.04mph Bugatti Mistral, of which only 99 will be built, and it's sold out. I'm now one of the 150 or so. I'm also one of only a handful of journalists to become the steering-wheel and loud pedal guide to the missile, currently the world's fastest roadster. Bugatti's history has been progressively etched in automotive lore since 1909. Much of the innovation and competitive nature of the carmaker, as well as its drive for the exceptional, resurfaced, thanks to previous owner Volkswagen Group's input and investment, in 2005 with the Veyron and its W16 motor, its final iteration powering the Mistral. I'll spare you the history lesson - it's widely-chronicled in Forbes. Bugatti invents the hypercar Bugatti, based in Molsheim, France, effectively invented the "hypercar" segment with initial v-max runs of 253.81mph in the 1000bhp Veyron, rising with the Super Sport Veyron to (267.856mph) and now with the world's fastest roadster: the Mistral. Rolls-Royces have on their dashboards a "power reserve" dial, emphasising just how unchallenged the engine is in most circumstances. Tucked off to the left of the instrument binnacle on a Mistral, with its central 500kmh (310.686mph) speedometer, alongside the rising bar of the tachometer, is a parallel instrument notated from zero to 1600. It provides information about how much of the Mistral's available power you're using. Those numbers relate, of course, to bhp. Most of the time, in "normal" driving, a feat remarkably well within the lower-demands of Mistral usage given its F1++ power output, that bar barely flickers above zero bhp being troubled, everyday trundle-pace drawing on EV battery power. At the top, "1600" keeps drawing your attention, a short-term obsession, progressively more aggressive right-foot-flexing producing acceleration during gaps in traffic that would embarrass mere supercars. But even acceleration beyond anything I'd experienced (we're talking in McLaren, Lamborghini and Ferrari), an eye-flick to that power-use gauge sees it nonchalantly nudging a traffic-restricted peak of around 650bhp. Bugatti's "Pilote Officiel" urges deployment of 1600bhp My "minder", decorated racing driver Bruno Spengler, 41, and now Bugatti's "Pilote Officiel" is happily urging me on, he having earlier demonstrated what all 1600bhp feels like during a lucky, and safe, break in traffic, a piece of luck that continues to evade me... Then the two-lane highway suddenly opens up, Citroens and Audis peeling aside, a VW van being the last to present me with an open ribbon of road I hope by now is somewhere in neighbouring Germany. "Go," says Bruno. The speed of the human brain can be impressive. I floor the throttle, but before that ultra-slow-motion split second between starting to floor it and it meeting the firewall something in my mind causes me to back off a fraction. All that human brain computing power calculates, in perhaps a nano-second, a vast array of factors and parameters and, in this instance, came to the conclusion: "Iain, 1600bhp going through four driven wheels to the road is perhaps not a great idea right now, mainly because in doing so you'll be accelerating not just faster than you ever have, but faster than probably 99.9% of the world's driving population has ever experienced. Floor it properly later when you know what to expect." So I backed off. To just over 1000bhp. I'll restate that. Just over 1000bhp. My own 330bhp BMW is fast. I've driven the likes of Lamborghinis to not-far-short of 200mph, , and my Honda 1000 superbike barely breaks a sweat in muscle-flexing alongside supercars. 1000bhp proves to be the traffic-restricted maximum But that now-eternal mental snapshot is still the deployment of 1000bhp, while my memory stores a recording of the brain's gyros registering forces never previously experienced. Because I now know what 1000bhp feels like for a few seconds, I think I can imagine the sensation personally deploying 1600bhp would bring. Years ago I raced cars, but the Mistral's performance brings into starker focus what F1 drivers achieve for 90 minutes or more in their 800kg, 1000bhp cars (a Mistral weights over 2000kg with driver). And they always seem to be for more power. Pulling back into Bugatti's grounds, Bruno pays me the sort of compliment you'd want on your cv, and, let's face it, guys, the sort of thing you wish other people had overheard: "I wouldn't have let you try that if you weren't a relaxed and very good driver." Aw, shucks. The Mistral is more than a straight-line rocket The Mistral isn't just an absolute rocket in a straight line, it's a great handling car with enormous grip. I exited every corner believing I could have entered it twice as fast, the specially-developed Michelin tyres untroubled. The brakes wouldn't be out of place on a Boeing 787, and the quality, design, detail and sheer craftsmanship of the Mistral admirable. Those details of design and engineering abound once you take pause and walk around the car. After parking up, the rear spoiler remains deployed so hot air can be vented out of the engine bay, progressively closing as the engine cools. Stick a finger between spoiler and rear panel, and it stops lowering, designed to prevent small fingers of mesmerised children being trapped. It may be immensely fast and powerful, but perhaps the only thing stopping you using it more than storing it is its value. You can only use what it offers for seconds at a time, rarely attempt to v-max it, and then only on a limited number of private straight-line tracks or runways. But that's perhaps what makes it special. It'll always have the potential, but the few opportunities to realise that potential will be etched on your mind for eternity.
Top Gear
19-06-2025
- Automotive
- Top Gear
Bugatti: three one-offs that didn't happen... and 20 of its biggest numbers
Advertisement A GT with the W16 stuffed up front. Quite a few visual similarities to one-off La Voiture Noir. This with a V16 in the nose? Yes please. Advertisement - Page continues below Based on the Taycan platform, but with a petrol-electric powertrain. A modern take on the 1936 Type 57 Atlantic with a clamshell boot and butterfly doors. You might like This 2008 concept, based on the Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport, predated the flurry of speedsters from Ferrari (Monza), McLaren (Elva) and Aston (Speedster). Advertisement - Page continues below Litres, four turbos and 16 cylinders make up Bugatti's W16 engine. Parts used in assembling each W16 powertrain. Every one is hand built. Seconds it'd take the Veyron's coolant pump to fill your average bathtub. Deceleration force from the Veyron's air brake. Tilts to 55° in 0.4secs when brake pedal applied. Advertisement - Page continues below Minutes it takes to drain the Chiron's fuel tank at vmax. Three secs quicker than the Veyron. Volume of air the Chiron guzzles per minute flat out, as much as we breathe in five days. Advertisement - Page continues below Recorded speed set by Andy Wallace in the Chiron Super Sport 300+. Ground the Chiron covered at full whack during its record run. Price of a single Chiron rear tyre from your local Halfords. Plus fitting. Number of bargain priced pedigree racehorses you could buy for the £3.8m Tourbillon. Total output of the Tourbillon: 986bhp from the engine, 789bhp from the three e-motors. 8.3-litre nat-asp V16 sits at the heart of the Tourbillon. Ear defenders on. Dry weight of the Bolide. Powerplant weighs 700kg alone. Lateral force the Bolide generates when cornering. Enough to make you dizzy. Total downforce the Bolide produces at its 236mph vmax. Bugatti's record number of deliveries in a year, set in 2023. Approximate amount the average Bugatti buyer spends on options. Weight of Bugatti's oval emblem. Each takes 10 hours and 20 people to create. Victories in the Le Mans 24-Hour Race, back in 1937 and 1939. Winner of Top Gear's Car of the Year award, in 2005. Shared with the Toyota Aygo. See more on Supercars
Top Gear
26-05-2025
- Automotive
- Top Gear
Think you know your Bugattis? Here's every speed-obsessed model that matters
Advertisement The touchstone for all modern Bugattis, the Type 35 of the 1920s won over 1,000 races in its competitive life. Not bad for a car with (at its most powerful) 138 horsepower. Advertisement - Page continues below Over six metres long, three tonnes in weight and powered by a 12.7-litre inline eight that Bugatti put in a high speed train. Possibly the ultimate luxury statement. And a complete commercial flop. You might like Could this be the prettiest aircraft of all time? Designed to win speed trials in the late 1930s, the contra-rotating props lightweight never flew in period because of World War Two. Advertisement - Page continues below The only product of Bugatti's mid-1990s revival celebrated the 110th anniversary of Ettore Bugatti's birth with a quad turbo AWD V12 supercar... just in time for a global recession. Before the Veyron came the... huh? Yep, this 1999 concept car previewed Volkswagen-led Bugatti's future with a 6.3-litre W18 engine good for a mere 555bhp. Took six years to evolve into the Veyron. VW boss Ferdinand Piëch's dream of a 400kph, 1,000 horsepower car was finally realised. And the company only had to make a loss in the region of €4m on every one sold to achieve it. You didn't expect Volkswagen to stop at a mere 1,000PS (986bhp), did you? New turbos, suspension, aero and tyres later, the SS managed a record breaking 268mph vmax on the VW test track. Advertisement - Page continues below Veyron successor continued the quad turbo W16 recipe, now up to 1,479bhp with Le Mans racer levels of chassis stiffness, a limited top speed of 261mph and a £1.8m price. Can a two tonne Fabergé egg moon rocket be a hardcore track special? With Bugatti now under the stewardship of spinoff specialist Stephan Winkelmann, oui , for sure. Advertisement - Page continues below Longtail Chiron packing a beastly 1,578bhp engine tune was the first factory road car to breach the 300mph barrier in history. And it was still accelerating. One more trophy for the quad turbo W16 engine. The roofless Mistral (named after southerly French breeze) took the cabriolet speed record with a 282mph run in late 2024. Roll on the Tourbillon. The first Rimac tech-infused Bugatti teams a tilted Cosworth V16 with three e-motors for 1,775bhp. Intricate aero and horology-tastic cabin seal the deal, this is the next all time great hypercar in waiting. See more on Supercars
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
The long and difficult gestation of the Bugatti Veyron
Anti-clockwise from top right: the EB118, EB218, 18/3 Chiron and 18/4 Veyron concepts In 1998, Volkswagen bought the rights to the Bugatti brand from the bankrupted Italian firm that had given us the V12-engined EB110 supercar. Seven years and more than €1 billion later, we drove a Veyron for the first time. It was the fastest and most powerful production car the world had ever seen, by quite some margin, and it hit, if not exceeded, all of the targets that had been set – except for cost, because there was no constraint on that, and, despite it retailing for €1 million, Volkswagen allegedly lost €5m on each one. Or rather company supremo Ferdinand Piëch lost it, because the Veyron was his car through and through. The idea only came to fruition because his attitude was: 'You will get it done, and if you can't, you will be replaced by someone who can,' according to Chrysler chief Bob Lutz. But then the Veyron was never meant to be a money-making exercise. In our final issue of 1998, Peter Robinson commented: 'Without Piëch's astonishing assault into car territories once beyond the wildest fantasy of staid old VW, the task of writing Autocar's weekly Grapevine column in 1998 would have been much harder.' Indeed, Piëch had tried to buy Rolls-Royce, Volvo Trucks, BMW, Cosworth, Lamborghini, Bentley and Bugatti all in that year, succeeding with the last four and setting about planning a sprawling new model range using monstrous engines. The world had its first glimpse of Veyron madness at the 1998 Paris motor show: the EB118, an ostentatious coupé concept with a 555bhp 6.3-litre W18 engine that 'arose from a simple sketch [Piëch had] made on a serviette during a dinner'.At the 1999 Geneva motor show, even while Volkswagen's W12-engined Syncro supercar was still on the cards, Bentley revealed an 8.0-litre W18 supercar of its own and Bugatti the EB218 concept, a saloon version of the EB118. The intention was for the brand to return to the market position it had enjoyed in its original pre-war form, so 'Volkswagen insiders were buoyed that the Mercedes team developing their own limousine, the Maybach, awarded the EB218 'benchmark' status after visiting Bugatti's stand', we reported. This was shortly followed by the 18/3 Chiron and 18/4 Veyron supercar concepts, which were much closer in style to what we know today. In 2000, though, it emerged that development of the W18 had slowed. 'It seems the cost of having both 16- and 18-cylinder engines frightens even Piëch,' we suggested. Soon after we sampled the 18/4 Veyron on condition of silence, and the big boss told us: 'We have the technology under control.' Clearly they didn't, though, because only a few months later, the supercar evolved into the 16/4 Veyron. Instead of three banks of two three-cylinder engines in line, it had VR8s grafted together into a W16 – much simpler. Nevertheless, there were fears that the Veyron project had become too expensive, even for Piëch and even after all the other planned Bugatti models had been canned. Brand president Karl-Heinz Neumann, who was also in charge of the entire group's powertrains, reassured us: 'Volkswagen has the money. From the end of 2003 or the beginning of 2004, we plan to build 50 Veyrons a year – a total of 200.' But by August 2003, Neumann had been 'given his marching orders'. 'Despite the upheaval,' we said, 'Bugatti officials deny the supercar's performance claims will be scaled back. They say the four-wheel-drive Veyron will hit 60mph in just 2.9sec and top 252mph.' And upon launch in September 2005, the Veyron did so. In fact, it was even quicker, hitting 60mph in 2.5sec. We were delighted and quite relieved to be able to at long last experience 'a peculiar cacophony that sounds a bit like two TVRs on full reheat plus an industrial-strength air hose' being 'accompanied by mind-bending, heart-stopping acceleration, the like of which has never been felt before in a road car'. ]]>
