2012 Bugatti Veyron on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Demand for Bugatti's Chiron Pur Sport is exceeding expectations

Bugatti's handling-focused Chiron Pur Sport should have been one of the stars of the 2020 Geneva auto show, but the event was canceled at the last minute due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Although customers weren't able to see the firm's newest model in person, demand has nonetheless been exceptionally high. Geneva is a major event for brands like Bugatti because it's one of the last shows where customers go to spend money, not just to sit in cars and play around with the infotainment system. Members of the company's sales and marketing team consequently had to find other ways to present the model; some potential buyers were shown the Pur Sport online, while a handful have seen it in person as it tours Europe. All have given it a warm welcome. "Feedback from customers that have seen the car, online or in person, has been positive. It's exceeding expectations," a spokesperson for the company told Autoblog. Bugatti will continue showing the car to loyal customers in Europe, and it will soon set sail across the Atlantic to make its debut on American soil. Sixty units of the Pur Sport will be built by hand in Bugatti's Atelier in Molsheim, France. It's the latest member of the Chiron family, which also includes the standard model introduced at the 2016 edition of the Geneva show and the record-breaking Super Sport 300+ unveiled in 2019. Frank Heyl, the company's deputy design director, told Autoblog that customer requests play a big role in shaping the different directions his team takes the Chiron in.  "We have customers who really demanded a more reactive, more emotional car. This was, of course, one idea. We said, 'OK, let's do it,' and we started developing this car," he said. Heyl stopped short of telling us what's next, but his team won't run out of ideas — and customers won't run out of requests — anytime soon. In the meantime, Bugatti's team of intrepid road testers is fine-tuning the Chiron Pur Sport by putting it through its paces on various tracks, including the Nurburgring. Production is scheduled to start in the second half of 2020. Related Video:    

Bugatti Gangloff Concept updates the rare Type 57 SC Atalante

Designer Pawel Czyzewski has taken a stab at what a new Bugatti coupe could look like. The Gangloff Concept lifts inspiration from the famous 1938 Bugatti Type 57 SC Atalante Coupe. That beautiful machine wore a body crafted by none other than French coach builder Gangloff, hence the concept's moniker. Wearing a few cues from the current batch of Veyron hypercars, including a familiar grille and cabin feel, the Gagloff is what the luxury coupes of our childhood dreams looked like. We dig the particularly brawny rear hips and split rear window.
While the LED headlights aren't really our bag of tricks, this concept has a heart-stopping profile. With those proud, arching fenders and eye-slit side glass, we certainly wouldn't mind seeing this machine in the Bugatti stable. Unfortunately, this design isn't officially affiliated with the French automaker, which means the Gagloff concept will remain pixels in the ether. Head over to CarBodyDesign.com for more information.

Vile Gossip: Ladies who launch

Jean Jennings has been writing about cars for more than 30 years, after stints as a taxicab driver and as a mechanic in the Chrysler Proving Grounds Impact Lab. She was a staff writer at Car and Driver magazine, the first executive editor and former president and editor-in-chief of Automobile Magazine, the founder of the blog Jean Knows Cars and former automotive correspondent for Good Morning America. She has lifetime awards from both the Motor Press Guild and the New England Motor Press Association. Look for more Vile Gossip columns in the future. The year was 2006. We were driving a Bugatti Veyron 16.4 across the Florida Panhandle from Jacksonville to Panama City, only because I couldn't convince Bugatti to let me be the first to drive its exotic powerhouse, the world's fastest car at that time, all the way across America. One gleaming example had arrived in time for the Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance, where the journos massed for their quick test drives out the front drive of the Ritz Carlton, down a short stretch of the A1A, and back to the Ritz. Not far enough for me. I wanted to take the Veyron in all of its 16-cylinder, 1,001-horsepower, $1.3-million-dollar glory on a coast-to-coast extravaganza of a road trip. Never hurts to ask. I asked. Once the Bugatti guys stopped hyperventilating, I explained that the coastal adventure would be contained wholly within the state of Florida, from the Atlantic coast to the Gulf of Mexico. My secret destination, however, was to be Vernon, Florida, home of the great Errol Morris' classic documentary about a town in the Panhandle with the highest per-capita population of citizens who'd blown off or whacked off a limb for insurance money. (Google "Nub City.") The Swiss head of Bugatti public relations thought it hilarious. He showed up in a van with a couple of German mechanics to follow us and a failed French Formula 1 driver to serve as my chaperone. I came with a photographer from Germany and one of the most infamous of bad-boy auto magazine tech editors, the irrepressible Don Sherman. Sherman had his own reason for going, and it had nothing to do with a Veyron to Vernon. Once we gave up looking for nubbies, he ordered me to veer south to the handgrip of the Panhandle, familiarly known as the Redneck Riviera. The Don was aiming to secretly execute the Veyron's first Launch Control blastoff in captivity.