HINTS OF BUGATTI VEYRON SUCCESSOR
French hypercar maker to showcase Vision Gran Turismo in Frankfur t this week
That’s an awesome-looking racer!
If you want to attract players to the Gran Turismo game on PlayStation, you have to offer jaw-dropping cars for them to download and drive. As its name suggests, Vision Gran Turismo has been jointly designed by Bugatti and the game’s creator, Polyphony Digital Inc.
Vision Gran Turismo also nods to the French hypercar maker’s presence in motorsport, particularly the Le Mans victories they secured in 1937 and 1939.
Like many other exotic brands, Aston Martin being one example, Bugatti is using the video games franchise to boost brand awareness and desirability among young people.
To put it in another way, these small-scale manufacturers want their machines to be the dream cars of the youth, whom might one day have enough money to buy one for real.
So, is this just a virtual exercise?
You thought it might, but it doesn’t stop there. When the doors to the Frankfurt motor show opens later this week, Bugatti will show a full-scale model there of Vision Gran Turismo. Seen here are official renderings of the car, not the actual metal yet.
It is claimed that the show car is providing clues to the all-new successor to the Veyron, whose production run of 450 units ended earlier this year.
Note the trademark horse shoe design on the front grille, as well as on both sides of the Vision Gran Turismo. Then there’s that fin treatment running along the middle of the car.
Because a 1:1-sized car is being prepped for the world’s largest car show, many people believe that some prospective clients have already seen the Veyron replacement, but not in full yet.
If you take a good look at the picture of the interior, there are two key aspects that should make it to the showroom: a fully digitised instrument panel and a McLaren-style centre console with touchscreen operation.
Will it still get that awesome 16-cylinder engine?
According to the European grapevine, the replacement is expected to get a modified version of the 8.0-litre quad-turbo 16-cylinder motor producing in the region of 1,500hp – up 300hp from the Veyron Super Sport.
It’s also rumoured that Bugatti may revive the Chiron badge for the Veyron successor when sales start in 2017. With 450 Veyrons sold, Bugatti can never be described as a relevant car brand for the general buyer, let alone enthusiasts needing a highperformance sports car for the weekend.
Instead, it has been designed to create new benchmarks and thresholds in automotive engineering, targeting wealthy car collectors who like to park their exotic machines in climate-controlled garages.