Big Shoes to Fill
Following up
2016’s Chiron won’t be easy. While it never had the cultural impact of the 2005 Veyron,
the Chiron was arguably better in every way than its mid-aughts predecessor. With 1,479 horsepower and 1,180 lb-ft of torque on tap in its base form, the Chiron was a sharper, better-handling, and more comfortable Veyron. It was still mega fast, too. By the end of its life, the Chiron’s Veyron-based 8.0-liter quad-turbo W-16 engine had been massaged to produce 1,578 hp, and a modified Chiron Super Sport managed to hit a
claimed top speed of 304 mph on a unidirectional run.
The Veyron, on the other hand, was unquestionably the fastest car of its day. It was willed into production by late Volkswagen chief Ferdinand Piëch, who allegedly wanted a car with at least 1,000 hp, a 400-kph (248.5-mph) top speed, and the ability to drive directly from the racetrack to the opera. The Veyron singlehandedly relaunched what was an obscure Franco-German brand that had been dormant
since a short-lived ’90s reboot. Before that, more than half a century had passed since the company produced anything of note, such as
the storied Type 57SC, of which only a small handful were built before World War II.
What a return to glory the Veyron was. In
our 2005 First Test, it zipped from 0 to 60 mph in a still-staggering 2.7 seconds and on through the quarter mile in 10.4 seconds at 139.9 mph. Later, at a German test track, we piloted one to its top speed of 253.2 mph. Yet somehow the Veyron’s cultural cachet (“Paris Hilton with all-wheel drive,” as we dubbed it) was even larger than its performance capabilities. It appeared in countless music videos, it could reliably be found stationed on Beverly Hill’s ritzy Rodeo Drive, and you couldn’t spot a red carpet in the ’00s that didn’t prominently feature at least one. The Chiron, for all its progress, just didn’t have the same impact.
Now
part of Bugatti Rimac, a 55/45 joint venture between Rimac and Porsche, it’s with that history and the electrified future in mind that new company chair Mate Rimac launches the Tourbillon.
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3 + 16
When discussions of the Chiron’s successor began four years ago, it would’ve been easy to just
pull a page from the Pininfarina Battista and reskin a Nevera. In fact, according to Mate Rimac, that’s exactly what Porsche wanted to do. (Porsche did not respond to a request for comment.) But Rimac, despite being a self-described “electric car guy,”
was insistent this was the wrong move for Bugatti. “Yes to progress, but not at the expense of emotion,” he recounted.
Indeed, emotion would play a big hand in the 2027 Bugatti Tourbillon.
Rimac brought a catalog of
five potential future Bugattis to early Chiron replacement meetings, including a four-seater, an electric SUV, and a trio of hypercars. But it was his five-motor, big-batteried, 16-cylinder plug-in hybrid monster that excited him most. The engine, he reasoned, would provide emotion, while the motors would give the car modern mind-bending performance.
After being talked down from five motors to three by chief technical officer Emilio Scervo (of McLaren 720S and Ferrari 458 Italia fame, who told us he’s never engineered a car that was heavier than its predecessor), what would become the Bugatti Tourbillon received the green light.
Its form soon began to take shape. Leaning heavily on Rimac’s EV expertise, Bugatti looked to its Croatian partner for the Tourbillon’s 800-volt architecture. Up front behind the Tourbillon’s frunk are two 335-hp, 177-lb-ft carbon-sleeved permanent-magnet motors capable of spinning at 24,000 rpm, packaged neatly with their respective silicon-carbide inverters. In the back behind the engine and transmission is another 335-hp motor and inverter matching the front units’ specs. Running down the car’s spine, where the driveshaft would be in the Chiron, is a T-shaped 24.8-kWh (25.0-kWh gross) battery pack that doubles as a structural member of the car. Bugatti says the three motors and oil-cooled lithium-ion NCA 21700-cell battery pack are lightweight at around 650 pounds combined. The CCS-capable battery can recharge from empty to 80 percent in about 12 minutes, peaking at just more than 80 kW.
With the motors and battery, from Rimac’s point of view, providing the modern performance the Tourbillon requires, that left the question as to what engine to pair it with. “Emotion” was the key driver of the decision, but weight and simplicity played a part, too.
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While compact, the 8.0-liter quad-turbo W-16 that powered the Veyron and Chiron was judged to be too heavy, complicated, and slow-revving for use in the Tourbillon. Because Bugatti Rimac intended to develop a new engine anyway, it chose a V-16 with development partner Cosworth—in part for its cylinder count, comparative simplicity, and light(er) weight versus a W-16.
Bugatti engineered both flat-plane and cross-plane crank versions of the new 8.3-liter naturally aspirated 90-degree V-16, but the team landed on a cross-plane version of the engine—with a 3-plus-foot-long crankshaft—as it was judged to not just perform better but also sound better as it raced to its 9,000-rpm redline. Rounding out the package is a new eight-speed dual-clutch automatic (sans reverse gear; the rear motor covers that), wedged sandwich-style between the V-16 and the rear motor.
The result? A whole lotta power. The 2027 Bugatti Tourbillon’s three motors combine for 789 hp, while the engine accounts for another 986 ponies and 664 lb-ft. Total combined system output is 1,775 hp. Bugatti hasn’t confirmed total system torque output as of press time.
Bugatti does say it expects the Tourbillon to accelerate to 60 mph in less than 2.0 seconds, to 100 mph in less than 5.0, to 185 in less than 10.0, and to 250 mph in about 25 seconds.
Top speed? The company claims to be more focused on feeling than flashy numbers, but Mate Rimac told us the Tourbillon can hit 276 mph—he also wasn’t exactly subtle in his hints that he wants more.
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