Bugatti Chiron

The one-off Bugatti Chiron SS Hommage T50S celebrates a 5.0-litre Le Mans car

Chiron Super Sport gets decked out by Sur Mesure in 1931 Le Mans outfit

This is yet another customised, one-off Bugatti Chiron Super Sport. Fittingly, it is a massively over-engined speed machine modified to pay homage to a massively over-engined speed machine.

Specifically, the Bugatti Type 50S that entered the 1931 Le Mans 24hr race. You may have heard of this race. It’s a race held in Le Mans and takes place over the course of 24 hours. Bugatti entered three cars in 1931, finished entirely in black and sporting a new 5.0-litre supercharged eight-cylinder engine.

This engine, says Bugatti, featured a dual overhead camshaft and was good for around 250bhp. It was at the time a herculean unit, able to allow the three Type 50S racers to deploy “thunderous speed down the long straights”. Victory was in sights, apparently, until one car suffered a tyre blowout and crashed. The remaining pair of cars were immediately retired to avoid any more accidents.

And it is one of those two retirees – chassis number 501777 racing under the number ‘5’ – that provides the inspiration behind this Chiron. As you can see, there is a racing number 5 applied to the Chiron’s flanks and to its grille, along with subtle ‘Le Mans 1931’ script ahead of the rear wheel arch.

 
Bugatti’s next hypercar will have a V16 engine: listen to it now

The W16 is dead. Long live the V16!

Stop what you’re doing folks and watch the video at the bottom of this news story immediately. Bugatti has announced that its next hypercar will feature a V16 engine, and by clicking play on the 25-second video you can hear it bang through the gears while looking at some lovely carbon fibre. We may have watched it more than once.

Yep, clearly nobody told Bugatti the rest of the car industry was downsizing, because it has decided to replace its monstrous 8.0-litre quad-turbo W16 engine with another set of 16 cylinders. Only this time they’re set in a V formation.

“With each generation of its hyper sports car, Bugatti has shifted the benchmark of design, engineering, performance and craftsmanship to new heights,” says erm… Bugatti.

“And this year, eight years to the day since the Chiron was revealed, Bugatti shows the world the first page of the newest chapter in its rich history.

 
This is your first look at Bugatti’s V16-engined successor to the Chiron

We’ve got hold of a spy shot of Bugatti’s next hypercar, and it looks… colourful

Hold the front page! In fact, hold the back page too. Hold all of the pages, because we’ve got our hands on a spy shot of Bugatti’s next hypercar.

Yep, this is your very first glimpse at the Chiron’s successor. Pretty proportions, aren’t they? The sweeping C remains in the side profile and is actually more pronounced than ever, while the rear diffuser looks like it might be the size of a whole Suzuki Swift. Pop-up rear spoiler and a traditional low nose too, plus a sweeping line of LED rear lights.

Of course, we already know that Bugatti is moving away from its old 8.0-litre quad-turbo W16 engine for this car, but rather than downsizing it’ll be replaced by an equally bonkers V16. Oh, and there will be hybrid assist to help bump up the power figure. We’d expect said figure to be considerable and the resulting acceleration to be mind-blowing. Obviously.

 
Bugatti reveals one-off 273mph Chiron Super Sport that pays tribute to the Type 55

Chiron doffs its 1,578bhp bumblebee cap to the original Super Sport

Any Bugatti Chiron Super Sport is stunning by virtue of it being a complex, mind-boggling piece of machinery capable of 273mph. This one, yet another ‘one-of-one’, is… yet another stunning Chiron Super Sport.
At base level, yes, it’s a Chiron with fancy yellow and black paint daubed across its impressive streamliner flanks. And a few decals showcasing the number 55.

But a deeper glance reveals the significance, for this not-so-little bumblebee is painted in the colours of the very first Bugatti Super Sport, the Type 55, introduced at the beginning of the 1930s.
Only 38 Type 55 Super Sports were ever built, making this Chiron even rarer than that Grand Prix racer. The owner of the car worked with Bugatti’s personalisation department ‘Sur Mesure’ to create the yellow and black finish that appeared on the 55, but here acting as a way to “visually break up the expansive surfaces of the hyper sports car”. Yeah, it's a big car.

 
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