1,825 HP Bugatti Bolide Track Car Revealed, Limited Production Considered

28 Oct 2020, 12:35 UTC ·
by

Mircea Panait

Based on the Chiron, the Divo is meant to handle really well and the Super Sport 300+ is one hellishly quick car in a straight line. As for the one-off Bolide, the concept revealed today is a track-focused concept with more suck-squeeze-bang-blow than any Bugatti before it.
35 photos
First things first, the French manufacturer hasn’t decided if the Bolide will go into production. Secondly, Bugatti claims that we’re looking at “the absolute pinnacle in terms of combustion engines used in automotive engineering.”
Like the Chiron and its siblings, an 8.0-liter W16 with four turbochargers is responsible for driving all four wheels with 1,850 PS and 1,850 Nm. In American money, those figures translate to 1,825 horsepower and 1,365 pound-feet of torque. “Impressive” is the word you’re looking for. The weight-to-power ratio of 0.67 KG per PS also boggles the mind, and the same can be said about on-track performance.
In theory, 3:07.1 is how much time the Bolide needs to lap Le Mans’ Circuit de la Sarthe. “Based on simulations,” the stripped-out hypercar is capable of lapping the Nurburgring Nordschleife in 5 minutes and 23 seconds. In other words, Bugatti may be within four clicks of the record-breaking lap time of the Porsche 919 Hybrid Evo.
“We asked ourselves how we could realize the mighty W16 quad-turbo engine as a technical symbol of the brand in its purest form – with solely four wheels, engine, gearbox, steering wheel and, as the only luxury, two seats,” declared Bugatti big kahuna Stephan Winkelmann. “Driving the Bolide is like riding on a cannonball," he added.
Cannonball or not, this outlandish fellow here sure looks as if someone from the Star Wars universe designed it. The rear end features X-shaped lights and a huge wing while the front is holed up like Swiss cheese in the name of aerodynamic efficiency.
Sitting 995 millimeters (39.1 inches) tall, the Bolide is just as focused on the inside as it is outside. From the design of the steering wheel to the button and switches on the floating center console, Bugatti created a driver-focused cockpit with ultra-light bucket seats. Both the driver and passenger sit with their legs elevated above their hips, which can be considered the halfway point between a road-going super sports car and a Formula 1 racer.