2012 Bugatti Veyron on 2040-cars

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Bugatti Vision Gran Turismo shows post-Veyron future

The wonderful thing about the ever-growing series of Vision Gran Turismo concepts is that designers are free to imagine anything for the virtual world. For Bugatti's stab at the idea, the hypercar company is gunning for absolute speed by imagining a model as quick as an LMP1 racer around Le Mans. Bringing the look back to reality, the brand has a carbon-fiber one-off on display at the Frankfurt Motor Show. "Bugatti Vision Gran Turismo is the first stage on a new journey that Bugatti is embarking on following the successful completion of its Veyron chapter, and which will culminate in the unveiling of the next Bugatti super sports car in the not too distant future," said company president Wolfgang Durheimer, in the vehicle's announcement. Take a good look at the cues Bugatti's stylists play with on the Vision Gran Turismo because the vehicle previews the brand's future design language. While inspired by the automaker's success at Le Mans in the 1920s and '30s, the only retro touches are the blue paint of the era's French racecars and the number in the horseshoe grille. The real result is a ground-scraping racecar that evolves the look of the Veyron. The nose is similar but sports eight LED headlights, and massive NACA ducts in the roof feed cool air to the W16 engine. A high fin runs down the back and leads to a mammoth rear wing. The company's engineers think the result of this all-out approach to speed would result in a racer capable of hitting over 250 miles per hour in four sections at Le Mans. Anyone with a copy of Gran Turismo should get to test that challenge fairly soon.

Bugatti Chiron Pur Sport Review | It's the slowest but the quickest

Apparently, even some Bugatti owners consider the real-world ramifications of a $3.6-million, 1,500-horsepower car. The Chiron Pur Sport is proof. Somewhere, perhaps between the helipad and the superyacht, Bugatti prospects are realizing they’ll never have the opportunity or skill to reach 300 mph, or 261 mph — the respective top speeds of the Chiron Super Sport 300+ and standard Chiron. The Pur Sport squeezes a mere 217 mph from its own 8.0-liter, 16-cylinder, quad-turbo engine. But Bugatti says the Pur Sport is the quickest Chiron at any speed between zero and 217 mph. ItÂ’s also the lightest, sharpest-cornering, least-insulated version — optimized for a driverÂ’s sensory stimulation, versus the largely psychological bragging rights of top speed. Consider it the high-performance version of one of historyÂ’s highest-performing cars. After driving the Pur Sport in Connecticut, with three-time 24 Hours of Daytona-winner Butch Leitzinger riding shotgun, IÂ’ll say itÂ’s definitely the one you want. “You” here would refer to Powerball winners, a payback-minded Melinda Gates, or silver-spooners who scoop up one of 60 Pur Sports, among 500 Chirons scheduled for production through about 2023. Leitzinger explains how it all works, as we walk around a Pur Sport in striking Atlantic Blue paint. Tasteful copper trim adorns the BugattiÂ’s signature C-shaped line that shelters doors ahead of the side inlets for turbo air and their intercooler radiators. Front wheel-arch vents extract more air. Less-tasteful is the optional number "16" emblazoned on the Pur SportÂ’s widened horseshoe grille, as if anyone could forget the unsurpassed cylinder count. Ditto for giant "Bugatti" lettering on the Pur SportÂ’s angled, 74-inch-wide rear wing. Add a Bugatti pillow, and it could double as a sunbathing deck. (As with everything Bugatti, the jersey number and lettering are entirely a matter of choice.) The fixed wing is tasked solely with downforce, replacing the electro-hydraulic wing/air-brake on other Chirons that adjusts to trim drag for record-setting acceleration runs. Its stanchion and a massive diffuser form a cool X-shape, atop an artfully thin-walled, 3D-printed titanium exhaust, its temperature-resistant outlets seemingly large enough to service a nuclear reactor. The view-blocking wing saves 22 pounds, among 110 pounds of total weight savings versus a Chiron.

Filmmaker explains how to shoot a Bugatti Chiron accelerating to 248 mph

Bugatti set a world record in 2017 when a Chiron traveled from zero to 248 mph (400 kph) to zero in 42 seconds. It caught the record on film, but it has never revealed how it captured footage of a 1,500-horsepower car traveling at nearly four times the speed limit of an American interstate. Filmmaker Al Clark revealed his secrets in a video. It was clear from the beginning of the project that simply placing a GoPro on the dashboard and hitting "record" wouldn't have cut it. Bugatti wanted a feature-quality film that showed the car from many different angles, so Clark worked with some of the most talented names in the automotive film industry to make it happen. The scenes showing the Chiron from above were filmed using an Aerospatiale 355N Ecureuil helicopter because a drone would be too slow to keep up with the car, and it wouldn't be able to stay in the air long enough.  German studio Format67 provided a Caterham Seven transformed into a film car to capture some of the car-to-car footage. The crew also borrowed its hood to use as a shield against reflections during one of the photo shoots. It's quick and agile, so it's well suited to performing camera car duty, but it can't keep up with a Chiron. "I love real speed in shots. I think it's so important that the cars are doing something approaching their real speed, because when you start to speed up stuff everything looks wrong," Clark explained. Putting footage on fast forward wasn't an option, neither was attaching the camera to a cable and pelting it down the track. The answer was surprisingly simple: The crew used another Chiron as the camera car and launched them at the same time. The record was set on Volkswagen's test track in Ehra-Lessien, Germany, which is also where a 304-mph Chiron became the fastest car in the world in 2019. The main straight is long and smooth, so the footage captured was perfectly steady in spite of the head-spinning speed; Clark even chose to dial in a little bit of camera shake during the editing process. It wasn't perfectly in focus, though, because the camera filmed through the exhaust gases, and the system gets extremely hot when the quad-turbocharged, 8.0-liter 16-cylinder engine is giving its all. Juan Pablo Montoya, the courageous Indy 500-winning pilot who set the 2017 record, said "it was all quite easy." Clark's firsthand account confirms the same can't be said about capturing the feat on video. Related Video:       Bugatti Technology Gadgets Luxury Performance