Bugatti boss: We’re not done with top speed runs
- Bugatti was out of the top speed record race but now looks to be back in
- The company in 2019 took a Chiron Super Sport 300+ to a top speed of 304.7 mph
- The company’s new Tourbillon hypercar has almost 200 hp more than the Chiron Super Sport 300+
Bugatti shocked the automotive world two decades ago when it launched the Veyron with a four-figure-horsepower rating, and then proceeded to smash the previous long-standing land speed record for production cars by sending the hypercar to a top speed of 253 mph.
With its successor, the Chiron, Bugatti chose to downplay the car’s top speed abilities. Bugatti’s former chief, Stephan Winkelmann, now head of Lamborghini, even came out in 2019 and said that Bugatti would chase performance targets other than top speed.
He said that after Bugatti sent a version of the Chiron to a top speed of 304.7 mph, making it the first company with a production car to crack the 300-mph mark.
Bugatti is now under new management though, and the new boss is fully intent on pushing the top speed envelope. When asked by The Drive during August’s Monterey Car Week whether Bugatti was finished with speed, Mate Rimac, head of the Bugatti Rimac business that oversees hypercar development for both the Bugatti and Rimac brands, replied, “It was. It isn’t.”
Mate Rimac
Bugatti Chief Technology Officer Emilio Scervo provided more detail, explaining that Bugatti will continue to aim for new top speeds but not at the detriment of the comfort and emotion that Bugatti customers demand.
“So we’re still going to pursue to move this barrier higher, but keeping this in a way is very Bugatti, very comfortable,” Scervo told The Drive. “It is not like a scary high speed drive, but it’s getting more emotional and more sophisticated in the way it delivers it.”
Under Rimac’s guidance, Bugatti has delivered a successor to the Chiron in the form of the Tourbillon. The car, due to enter production in 2026, was revealed in June with a plug-in hybrid powertrain combining a naturally aspirated 8.3-liter V-16 engine with a trio of electric motors for a combined output of 1,775 hp.
Bugatti Tourbillon
The car’s top speed is capped at 276 mph but a true Vmax above 300 mph wouldn’t be surprising, considering the Chiron in 1,577-hp Chiron Super Sport 300+ form already went 304.773 mph. That isn’t considered the world land speed record for a production car though, at least by Guinness. To get into the record books, an average of two speeds is used with the car running in opposing directions within the space of an hour, to eliminate the effects of the road surface’s gradient and any tailwind.
Because the Chiron 300+ only made the one run to 304.7 mph, the SSC Tuatara is considered to hold the record with its speed of 282.9 mph achieved in 2021.
While SSC appears to be out of the race for a new record, Bugatti faces one other major threat, and that is Koenigsegg with its Jesko Absolut. The Swedish marque has previously said its hypercar could potentially go beyond 300 mph.