2024 Bugatti W16 Mistral

FiestaST

FiestaST

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Bugatti's ultimate roadster has been shown./

Bugatti W16 Mistral

Ever since the Veyron was introduced in 2005, the W16 engine has been the beating heart of every Bugatti. The roadgoing car that brings the W16 era to an end was always destined to be special: exclusive, elegant and powerful. It must be the very best of its kind. This is W16 Mistral: the ultimate roadster.

Mate Rimac, Bugatti Rimac CEO, said: "For the final roadgoing appearance of Bugatti's legendary W16 engine, we knew we had to create a roadster. Well over 40% of all Bugatti vehicles ever created have been open-top in design, establishing a long lineage of performance icons that - to this day - are revered the world over. In the Chiron era there had, to-date, been no roadster, so the introduction of Bugatti W16 Mistral continues this legacy, driven by enormous demand from our clients for an all-new way to experience the mighty performance of our iconic engine. The W16 Mistral opens the next chapter in the Bugatti roadster story, inspired by over a century of open top legends."

For a car as evocative and important as this, great consideration went into the badge it should wear. Far more than simply a development of the Chiron, the roadster needed a name associated with freedom, elegance and speed. Inspiration came from the mistral, a powerful wind that blows from the Rhône River valley, through the chic towns of the Côte d'Azur in southern France and into the Mediterranean. And with the engine so central to this roadster's character, it stands side-by-side with this mighty wind: W16 Mistral.

Built around the definitive 1,600 PS incarnation of the W16 engine, first used in the Chiron Super Sport 300+2, the W16 Mistral offers performance unlike any open top car that has gone before. In its design and engineering it is completely bespoke; the existing monocoque is not simply cut off above the A-pillars to make way for the new open-top design but has been reengineered and reshaped to create a more rounded silhouette without compromising performance.


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Bugatti's 1578bhp Mistral roadster bows out W16 engine

Car "completes the circle" of the W16 era, but isn't just a Chiron with the "top cut off"

Bugatti will bow-out its iconic W16 engine with the Mistral, a roadster based on the Chiron hypercar, as the firm heads towards a hybridised and electric future.

The Mistral is not simply a Chiron with the top cut off, Bugatti designers insist, but a new car, with a tweaked monocoque, and a fresh design that takes cues from the one-off Voiture Noire, and Bolide and Divo concepts. It is priced at €5 million (£4.2m) and limited to just 99 models, all of which are already sold out.

Officially called the Bugatti W16 Mistral, it is a swansong for the 8.0-litre powerplant, and uses ther 1578bhp version that powered the Chiron Super Sport 300+ to a record-breaking 304.773mph in 2019. Bugatti has indicated that it intends the Mistral to become the world’s fastest roadster, a record held by the 265.6mph Hennessey Venom GT Spyder.

The roadster also “completes the circle” of the W16 era, design director Achim Anscheidt told Autocar, which started in 2005 with the iconic Bugatti Veyron. Although the engine powering the Mistral has been heavily uprated since that first outing, now with four turbochargers. Achim added that the W16 was the “ultimate selling point” for the hypercar firm

It’s, in typical Bugatti fashion, an expensive-looking machine, clad in carbon, and with a more sportier feel than the Chiron on which it is based.

www.autocar.co.uk

Bugatti's 1578bhp Mistral roadster bows out W16 engine | Autocar

Car "completes the circle" of the W16 era, but isn't just a Chiron with the "top cut off"
www.autocar.co.uk www.autocar.co.uk
 
Behold: the €5m Bugatti Mistral, a W16-engined Speedster

A goodbye to that incredible 8.0-litre powerhouse, wrapped up in just 99 extraordinary limited editions

This is the Mistral, the car with which Bugatti is bidding farewell to the internal combustion era. As we’re talking eight litres, 16 cylinders, four turbochargers and 1,600 metric horsepower here, that is some era, and clearly something special is required to send this incarnation of Bugatti on its way. How does a full-blown Roadster/Speedster grab you?

"This is the last of the line," the company’s design director Achim Anscheidt tells TG.com during an exclusive preview. (We’re in the Remise Sud in Bugatti’s Molsheim HQ, next door to the Chateau St Jean which founder Ettore Bugatti bought in 1928 in order to entertain potential clients.) "I wanted the roadster to exude elegance and to have longevity amongst our clients’ collections. People will be acutely aware that this is the last of its kind, that it’s something very significant. Approaching this project reminded me of the last cars Jean Bugatti did in the pre-WW II era. He was a very gifted stylist and designer in his own right, and as a team we felt enormous pressure to deliver something that really celebrated this landmark moment."

Bugatti cites the 1934 Type 57 Grand Raid, as bodied by Swiss/French coachbuilder Gangloff, as the ‘muse’ for the new car, and the Mistral debuts in a duo-tone black with truffle brown paint treatment enlivened by yellow accents. Apparently this was Ettore Bugatti’s preferred colour scheme. Check out the V-shaped windscreen and the aero head rest supports, both of which have echoes in the Mistral.

Following the Chiron, Divo, Centodieci, Voiture Noire, and Bolide, the Mistral does the one thing Bugatti has so far resisted in the current era: removes the roof, a crowd-pleaser for sure, but also consistent with the company’s fabulous legacy. "Well over 40 per cent of all Bugatti vehicles ever created have been open-top in design," says Mate Rimac, Bugatti Rimac CEO. "In the Chiron era there had, to date, been no roadster, so the introduction of the W16 Mistral continues this legacy, driven by enormous demand from our clients for an all-new way to experience the mighty performance of our iconic engine."

www.topgear.com

Behold: the €5m Bugatti Mistral, a W16-engined Speedster

A goodbye to that incredible 8.0-litre powerhouse, wrapped up in just 99 extraordinary limited editions
www.topgear.com www.topgear.com
 
Need a serious government contract to get one of those
 
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Bugatti is working on a “completely new combustion engine”

The Chiron’s successor will be a plug-in hybrid, says Mate Rimac, and he’s developing a new engine from scratch

The open-top Mistral – the final ever outing for the W16 engine - might have wooed the crowds at Pebble Beach last week, but something much bigger is brewing at Bugatti. Just under a year since the Bugatti Rimac coalition formed, Mate Rimac is already hard at work shaping what the future holds… and it’s not what you’d expect.

“When we started to discuss about the takeover of Bugatti, VW and Porsche were telling me the next Bugatti needs to be electric. And that would be the easiest thing, to take the Nevera, which we have developed for five years - it's already the highest performance electric car - and just rebadge into a Bugatti,” Rimac told us during a Top Gear Magazine Podcast special at the Quail.

“I was fighting furiously with the management of Porsche and Volkswagen. Really heated arguments that the next Bugatti shouldn't be electric. I think that was absolutely the right decision. So we decided to keep Rimac all electric and Bugatti, for the foreseeable future, will have combustion engines with strong hybridisation, interesting combinations with combustion and electric powertrains.”

www.topgear.com

Bugatti is working on a “completely new combustion engine”

The Chiron’s successor will be a plug-in hybrid, says Mate Rimac, and he’s developing a new engine from scratch
www.topgear.com www.topgear.com
 
FiestaST said:
Bugatti is working on a “completely new combustion engine”

The Chiron’s successor will be a plug-in hybrid, says Mate Rimac, and he’s developing a new engine from scratch

The open-top Mistral – the final ever outing for the W16 engine - might have wooed the crowds at Pebble Beach last week, but something much bigger is brewing at Bugatti. Just under a year since the Bugatti Rimac coalition formed, Mate Rimac is already hard at work shaping what the future holds… and it’s not what you’d expect.

“When we started to discuss about the takeover of Bugatti, VW and Porsche were telling me the next Bugatti needs to be electric. And that would be the easiest thing, to take the Nevera, which we have developed for five years - it's already the highest performance electric car - and just rebadge into a Bugatti,” Rimac told us during a Top Gear Magazine Podcast special at the Quail.

“I was fighting furiously with the management of Porsche and Volkswagen. Really heated arguments that the next Bugatti shouldn't be electric. I think that was absolutely the right decision. So we decided to keep Rimac all electric and Bugatti, for the foreseeable future, will have combustion engines with strong hybridisation, interesting combinations with combustion and electric powertrains.”

www.topgear.com

Bugatti is working on a “completely new combustion engine”

The Chiron’s successor will be a plug-in hybrid, says Mate Rimac, and he’s developing a new engine from scratch
www.topgear.com www.topgear.com
Click to expand...
The same engine they use in the Porsche lemans and soon to be F1, small V6 hybrid
 
Much better looker than the Chiron which was a much better looking car than the Veyron.

I suppose we will see more electrification in future Bugattis with Rimac in charge. Not a bad thing.
 
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