We’re just a couple weeks away from Bugatti’s next hypercar.
As May drew to a close, Bugatti finally ended the Chiron’s eight-year-long chapter with the fittingly named “L’Ultime”. Many appropriately thought that was the end for the automaker’s 16-cylinder hypercars, as changing regulations and an eye toward electrification would prevent its next-generation car from having such a massive powertrain — and possibly any conventional engine at all. Well, fortunately for enthusiasts that isn’t the case, as Bugatti confirmed the Chiron’s follow-up will indeed pack a V16 engine.
Even better than just talking about it, though, the company gave us a taster of how it will sound, and of course it is glorious. Now, Bugatti also confirmed this new, as-yet-officially-unnamed model will make its full debut on Thursday, June 20.
So, what exactly can we expect? We still don’t know too much about it, evidenced by the fact that we don’t even have an actual name yet. What the general consensus suggests, however, is that it will not be an evolution of the quad-turbocharged 8.0-liter unit that powered both the Veyron and the Chiron. Instead, this will be a new powertrain Bugatti engineers developed in-house, and will be “heavily electrified”, potentially with that “heavily” part aiming for even more ludicrous performance than the 1,600-ish horsepower Chiron Super Sport.
While this new Bugatti will certainly look every bit as exotic as its forebears, we also expect the next-generation model to ride on a new chassis and have some new styling features, in addition to the new hybrid V16 setup. The company says that this is engineered “from the ground up on the three pillars of beauty, luxury and performance.” The interior should also see some thorough updates, though Bugatti refrained from just machine-gunning the Chiron with screens, so I’d imagine they’ll want to maintain that ethos for new cars moving forward.
We’ll just have to wait a couple weeks and see, of course. In the meantime, though, here’s another look at the automaker’s YouTube teaser, and they will livestream the reveal as well:
