► Bugatti’s most extreme car yet
► F1-like weight and performance
► Clocks in at 5m 23s at the ‘Ring
Remember the Bugatti Bolide? The hypercar track-day special was unveiled all the way back in the dark days of 2020 and is still warming up for its maiden laps next year.
Bugatti has kept our interest by unveiling more details about the interior of the Bolide – and it’s as extreme as you might expect, with a confection of ultra-lightweight materials, an F1-style steering wheel and more tricks and toys for the discerning (and deep-pocketed) track-day connoisseur.
You’ll climb in to the grippy seat and be tilted back, with your legs raised as if you were about to do a stint at the Le Mans 24 Hours. Pity the poor passenger who can sit beside you. Race-style winglets ensconcing the seatbacks mean you’ll likely not see them whimpering next to you.
‘Bolide’ is Italian for ‘missile,’ lest you forgot, and is the name for bright meteors that usually explode in the atmosphere.
Is the Bugatti Bolide explosive?
Maybe not literally, but the performance it can unleash seems that way. The 8.0-litre quad-turbo W16 makes 1825bhp and 1364lb ft – extreme numbers in themselves – sent to all four wheels via a seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox.
Bugatti claims a 0-62mph sprint is over with in just 2.1 seconds, 0-124mph is done in 4.3sec and 0-186mph is finished in just 7.3sec. Those superlative performance figures allow the Bolide to lap the Nurburgring in just 5min 23sec. Our stomachs feel quite queasy just reading those figures.
In the case of the W16 used here, the turbochargers are all-new, the intake and exhausts have been opened up (compared to those on a Bugatti Chiron) and a bespoke cooling system uses air-to-air intercooling with water ‘pre-cooling’, which Bugatti claims is a better set-up than a Formula 1 car.
There has to be more to it than that…
It’s the chassis and extreme weight-saving techniques that really take the Bolide to the next level. A dry weight of 1240kg means a one metric horsepower per 0.67kg power-to-weight ratio.
All screws are made of titanium and 3D-printed titanium alloy components are used throughout. Aerodynamics include firsts like a morphing air intake that bulges out at higher speeds, the wheels are made of magnesium and the pushrods in the double-wishbone suspension weigh just 100g each.
The Bolide is less than a metre tall – the same height as the Type 35 racer and has folding doors like a LMP1 racer. In order for the car to race on FIA circuits, organisation-approved details like an automatic fire extinguisher, pressure refuelling, centre locks for the wheels and a six-point harness all feature.
‘In my 16 years at Bugatti, I have never worked on a more extreme concept,’ says Bugatti design boss, Achim Anscheidt. ‘It’s the very first time that my team had the freedom of creating an absolutely minimalistic design around the W16 engine, and is a project more technically driven than shaped by style.’
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