Serial Bugatti Bolide was weaker and heavier than last year’s concept
Last fall, the French brand Bugatti presented the concept of the track hypercar Bolide, and now its production version has debuted as part of the California Monterey Car Week festival, which will be released in an edition of 40 copies worth 4 million euros each.
Bugatti developed the Bolide concept in the status of a marriageable company: there were rumors that the Volkswagen concern, which has been part of the French brand since 1998, wanted to get rid of it. These rumors were confirmed in July of this year, when it was officially announced that Bugatti was coming under the control of the Croatian company Rimac, which produces electric hypercars. The new Bugatti models, therefore, will be electric, but they will not be copies of the Rimac models, which means that they will take several years to develop. Together with them, models are planned in the Bugatti lineup that use the technical heritage of the German concern, including the mighty 8.0-liter W16 engine with four turbochargers – Bolide is built around it.
The decision to release Bolide in a small series was facilitated not only by the certainty that appeared in the fate of Bugatti, but also by the requests of customers from all over the world – they say, we want such a car in our collection. Bugatti CEO Stefan Winkelmann was happy to meet them, but forty lucky people who had the honor of parting with four million euros for the opportunity to personally ride the Bolide will have to be patient – the start of deliveries is scheduled only for 2024.
In the photo, where the Bugatti Chiron and Bugatti Bolide stand side by side, it is clearly seen that their bodies are different.
The fact is that Bolide is not a variation of the Chiron road hypercar, but an independent project with a new, lower and lighter carbon-titanium body and racing chassis. If the Chiron is a comfortable, richly equipped and rather heavy car weighing under two tons, then the Bolide, as Winckelmann described it, “is just four wheels, an engine, a gearbox, a steering wheel and two seats.” That is, the most ascetic, light and fast car for pilots strong in body and spirit.
Bolide borrowed only the power unit from the Chiron (W16 engine paired with a 7-speed dual-clutch automatic), and even that is optimized for track driving, that is, it has fewer restrictions. However, the characteristics of the production Bolide are worse than those of the concept: the maximum engine power is 1600, not 1850 hp. (the Chiron has 1500 hp). The company explains this by saying that the concept was designed to use racing fuel with an octane rating of 110, and the serial Bolide will be powered by 98-octane gasoline, which is why the power is lower.
The curb weight of the serial Bolide is 1450 kg, while the concept had a dry weight of 1240 kg. Taking into account liquids (their mass in passenger cars rarely exceeds 100 kg), it turns out that the serial Bolide is about a centner heavier than the concept. What the extra pounds went to, the developers do not report, the press release only says that they tried to bring the production car as close as possible to the concept. Dynamic characteristics have not yet been announced. At the concept stage, it was stated that the Bolide could accelerate to 100 km / h in 2.17 seconds, and a top speed of over 500 km / h.
The active aerodynamic plumage, which at a speed of 320 km / h creates an additional 800 kg of load on the front axle and 1800 kg on the rear, has not yet been confirmed on a production car. And given the increased mass, it must be assumed that one can not count on 2.8g overloads in the turns that the concept was supposedly capable of. He was also said to be able to drive the Nurburgring Nordschleife in 5 minutes 23.1 seconds. So far, only the sports prototype Porsche 919 Hybrid Evo has been faster, which in 2018 passed the Nordschleife in 5 minutes 19.5 seconds.
However, specific figures are unlikely to somehow affect the collection value of the Bolide – given the status of the Bugatti brand, it will go off scale anyway.
