Bugatti has confirmed the successor to the Chiron volition beryllium revealed adjacent twelvemonth up of a launch successful 2026.
It volition use a hybrid-assisted petrol V8 powertrain aft the steadfast retired the iconic W16 powertrain with the Bugatti Mistral.
Speaking with Autocar, Achim Anscheidt, who oversaw the caller hypercar's design, said: “The car is finished. We delivered the prototype tooling a mates of months agone and the accumulation tooling volition beryllium delivered successful a mates of months from now.”
News about the Chiron successor follows Anscheidt's announcement that helium is stepping down arsenic plan main aft 19 years astatine the French firm. He said: “[The successor] was thing that was much of a reasoning exercise, particularly connected the interior, and everything I person tried to larn and comprehend implicit the past 19 years with Bugatti, I wanted to marque sure this acquisition funnels into the car’s development.”
Anscheidt said the as-yet-unnamed successor has to "bring forward" Bugatti into a caller era, portion retaining the brand's signature plan cues specified arsenic the horseshoe grille and 'Bugatti line' - a salient beltline that has featured connected each Bugatti since the Type 57 of 1934.
Drawing connected his ain acquisition of the plan process, Anscheidt said: “What the Chiron manifests contiguous and wherever the marque sits from the Veyron to the Chiron and wherever the marque is present established, it takes a definite level-headed plan absorption to instrumentality that adjacent measurement and not beryllium drawn into immoderate benignant of styling exercise."
The upcoming hypercar volition beryllium connected a caller chassis and is expected to beryllium leaner than the Bugatti Mistral roadster, owed to the smaller, V8 powerplant.
"It volition besides person its constraints due to the fact that of performance and show needs," said Anscheidt. "But we cognize each centimetre of our cars truthful good by present that we cognize precisely wherever [change] would assistance us and wherever it would make a problem.”
Bugatti is being precise tight-lipped astir its caller model, revealing thing astir the plan barroom the electrified quality of the powertrain.
Other hybrid hypercars utilizing battery-assisted engines scope from the Aston Martin Valkyrie, with its 6.5-litre Cosworth V12 engine, to the Mercedes-AMG One, which has a turbocharged 1.6-litre V6 Formula 1 engine. Expect thing nearer the Aston extremity of the standard for the adjacent Bugatti.
Speaking to Autocar, Bugatti's caller plan director, Frank Heyl, said the caller car volition “be adjacent much amazing” than the Mistral, asking fans to “trust us”.
He added: “It's going to beryllium amazing, proportionally, technologically, successful presumption of innovation, successful presumption of unexpectedness. It's going to stroke radical retired of the h2o completely, and it's a existent joyousness to enactment connected this.”
Designing the car has been a challenge, Heyl added. “If you comparison [the Mistral] to the LaFerrari, it's really rather a compact car for what it is, with the gearbox successful betwixt the seats, which was done for weight-balance reasons,” helium said. “But with a hybrid powertrain, you person the added value of the batteries, truthful you person to reconsider the architecture of the full car.”
The interior won't beryllium getting a melodramatic overhaul, though, and volition alternatively enactment adjacent to the firm's caller offerings, Bugatti interior decorator Aldo Maria Sica said. We expect it to usage a larger cardinal infotainment touchscreen successful the aforesaid vein arsenic the modernised Aston Martin DB12.
The caller car is expected to outgo much than the €5 cardinal (£4.2m) Mistral.
Next up, Bugatti will look astatine an electrical car, Bugatti Rimac brag Mate Rimac has said previously.
Additional reporting by Jonathan Bryce