$3M Bugatti thumbs its nose at your ride
Blazing beauty makes no apology as world’s priciest production car
LOS G ATOS, CALIF. The technology and automotive worlds are awash with debate over how quickly self-driving cars will arrive to end costly car ownership and begin the inexpensive ridehailing revolution.
And then there’s the Bugatti Chiron, whose very existence blows a giant French raspberry in that general proletarian direction.
The Chiron is the physical manifestation of stock market and real estate booms that have left the 0.01% crowd flush with cash to manifest their wealth. While names such as Ferrari, Porsche and Rolls-Royce say “rich,” Bugatti says “don’t ask.”
At $3 million, the Chiron — pronounced shee- ron, after fabled midcentury Bugatti racer Louis Chiron — is the world’s most expensive production car, the unrivaled crown jewel of the Volkswagen Group, whose holdings also include Audi, Bentley and Lamborghini.
At 1,500 horsepower and 1,180
foot-pounds of torque from 16 cylinders, it is also the world’s most powerful automobile, capable of hitting 60 mph in 2.5 seconds and reaching a top speed of 236 mph — unless you use a special key to unlock its true top speed of 261 mph (although where one might hit such a mark without losing your marbles or license is unknown).
And at only 500 units, the Chiron is among the world’s most exclusive works of mechanical art, handmade in a facility in Molsheim, France, so spotless it would wow a surgeon and by workers so meticulous they’d impress a jeweler.
After a 2016 Geneva Motor Show debut, Bugatti has finally started delivering its new Chiron. Typically, Bugatti sells 40% of its exclusive cache to Europeans, 30% to Americans and 30% to Russian, Asian and Middle Eastern buyers.
So far, just less than half those 500 remain unclaimed.
“People are putting money into hypercars, in part because they often retain their value very well,” says Maurizio Parlato, chief operating officer of Bugatti North America. “But where many com- panies are essentially offering you a race car that you’re helping them develop further, we’re offering a fully tested, reliable supercar you can take to the theater.”
Parlato, a onetime Ferrari executive, is too polite to name names, but what comes to mind are the $2 million Ferrari LaFerrari Aperta and the $3 million McLaren P1 GTR.
The biggest difference between the Chiron and those road rockets is that the Bugatti comes by its power the old-fashioned way, an internal combustion engine that lacks the electric motors that give the LaFerrari, McLaren and Porsche 918 Spyder their extra hybrid-based get up and go.
Also in contrast to purely track-focused beasts, Parlato says the Chiron comes by its VW-like ease of use and dependability because of its parent company’s extensive R&D departments.
These include engine-testing facilities that allowed Bugatti engineers to develop 25% more power than the company’s outgoing Veyron, thanks to four larger turbochargers that now engage sequentially. That makes for markedly smooth power delivery, especially from 80 mph on up under full boost, but the Chiron gives up a little off the line to its linear-torque-fed hybrid peers.
Yet Parlato is keen to position the Chiron as the sensible person’s hypercar, not only because of rigorous pre-sale testing but also because of its four-year bumper-to-pricey-bumper warranty, which covers all major maintenance items.
Says Parlato, “You have the same sense of security and reassurance as someone buying a normal car.”