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Bugatti breaks the 300-mph barrier in a longtail Chiron prototype

In one fell swoop, Bugatti reclaimed the top speed crown from Koenigsegg, and became the first hypercar manufacturer to break the 300-mph barrier. Andy Wallace, the French firm's official test pilot, recently set a speed record in a purpose-built, Chiron-based prototype on the Ehra-Lessien track in Germany. With 16 cylinders screaming in unison a foot away from his eardrums, Wallace reached 304.773 mph on Ehra-Lessien's 5.4-mile straight. To add context, the Veyron Super Sport topped out at 267.856 mph, and the Koenigsegg Agera RS stopped accelerating at 284.550 mph. Japan's Shinkansen bullet train normally runs at about 200 mph. The record-setting Chiron is faster than many small, Cessna-like aircrafts, and it can outrun a majority of the helicopters in the skies. Bugatti calls the record-setting car a pre-production version of a Chiron derivative. While technical details remain under wraps, we can tell its rear end has been extended in order to add downforce without creating drag. Round vents drilled into the top part of the front end reduce turbulence in the wheel wells, while peeking inside reveals a roll cage and a Sparco bucket seat for the driver. The prototype looks a little bit lower than a regular Chiron, too, but we'll have to wait until Bugatti publishes more information to find out what lies beneath the carbon fiber bodywork, and whether any of it will reach production. Italy's Dallara helped develop the special Chiron. Michelin contributed a great deal of expertise to the project, too. It provided Pilot Cup Sport 2 tires reinforced to handle 5,300 Gs while remaining street-legal. The company went as far as sending the four tires through an X-ray machine to scan for even the smallest imperfections. The run comes as a surprise, because the company's interest in setting speed records seemingly waned after it released the Chiron. Getting to 304 mph required a tremendous amount of effort, but Bugatti now has two additional bullet points on its resume. It's the first automaker to break the 300-mph barrier, and the Chiron stands out as the fastest car in the world.  We expect to learn more about Bugatti's record-setting run — including what's next for the record-breaking car — in the coming weeks as the firm continues celebrating its 110th birthday. In addition to the speed record, the celebrations have so far spawned the one-off La Voiture Noire and the limited-edition Centodieci.

Fast doesn't begin to describe it | 2017 Bugatti Chiron First Drive

Long after the heat of the moment, I pull off the highway in rural Portugal and glance at the Bugatti Chiron's center console. As the engine cools and the carbon silicon carbide brake rotors start to dissipate heat, the onboard computer's telemetry reveals some staggering figures: A peak speed of 377 km/h (do the math, and that's 234 mph), with the quad-turbocharged W16 squeezing a max of 1,466 horsepower at 6,691 rpm. Did I just drive a car or fly a plane? The mind-boggling brain shuffle of Bugatti's latest land rocket cannot be understated, even when placed in context against the now-defunct Veyron. In ultimate Super Sport trim, the Veyron produced a stunning 1,200 (metric) horsepower. The Chiron's leap to 1,500 ponies required considerable development, testing, and re-engineering. That exhaustive process saw significant challenges, even late in the game. Consider the high-speed testing incident in South Africa: despite extensive test-bench work, real-world driving revealed that the immense exhaust heat was melting the rear bumper and nearly igniting the car. The solution, it turns out, was to add a duct so airflow from the underbody could channel through and diffuse the heat. Hashtag: #1500HorsepowerProblems. For the 500 wealthy souls who will take delivery, the $2,998,000 Chiron is most certainly an emotional purchase. But it's backed by a battery of left-brain thinking aimed at making it a quicker, smoother, more involving car than its famously controversial predecessor. For starters, only five percent of the engine's parts are retained from the Veyron, the bulk of the new parts getting strengthened, lightened, and re-engineered to better cope with the thermal demands of the heightened output. The four turbochargers are 68 percent larger and now work sequentially so the first set can facilitate a torque plateau between 2,000 and 4,000 rpm. The larger, second set of turbos extend the flat line to 6,600 rpm. The seven-speed gearbox manufactured by Ricardo, which is essentially the only dry-sump dual-clutch on the production car market, has been strengthened and reinforced to withstand the engine's thumping 1,180 pound-feet of torque. The immense drivetrain is housed by a carbon-fiber chassis by Dallara that requires 1,500 hours to build. The Chiron also gains an adaptive chassis that uses five drive modes to set ride height, steering effort, damping, and power distribution.

Bugatti begins assembling the first 1,600-hp Centodieci prototype

Created as a tribute to the EB110, the Bugatti Centodieci is coming to life. The French firm has started putting together the running and driving prototype that it will use to fine-tune the model before it launches production. Although the Centodieci is an evolution of the Chiron, it's different enough to require its own development process. Engineers have spent over a year running simulations to find out how the model-specific parts react in a variety of conditions. They studied how air flows over the redesigned body panels, for example, including the fixed rear wing. They also examined how the new aerodynamic profile affects thermal management. "Every newly developed vehicle poses an immense challenge, as we are creating a very small series that at the same time has to meet and even exceed all of the quality and safety standards of a large series," said Andre Kullig, the technical project manager for one-off and few-off projects at Bugatti, in a statement. Bugatti started dyno-testing the prototype's chassis at its Molsheim, France, headquarters in early 2021. It's essentially a running and driving car — complete with an 8.0-liter, 1,600-horsepower W16 engine — without body panels. Images released by the firm provide a fascinating and rare look at what's underneath the surface. They reveal parts of the cooling system (including lines that run down both sides of the car) and miles of wiring. Everything went according to plan, according to the firm, so the next step involves building the first Centodieci body. Here again, data mined during months of advanced simulation work will guide the production process. "With the newly designed body, there are changes in many areas that we had to simulate using special computer programs. Based on the data, we were able to establish a basic setup as a starting point for series development and the first prototype," Kullig said. He noted that part of the development process involved adjusting the curvature of the different components to obtain a homogenous appearance regardless of lighting conditions. Kullig's team will then put the development prototype through its paces in real-world conditions, including high-speed and high-heat runs, before giving the Centodieci the proverbial green light for production. Bugatti plans to build 10 examples, and collectors claimed the entire production run before the model made its public debut in 2019. Pricing started at ˆ8 million (about $9.7 million) before options.