Bugatti Bolide, the ultimate car

Only one brand today can produce a car like this, and only one person could lead a project like this to a successful conclusion at such a complicated moment in recent history: Bugatti Bolide by Stephan Winkelmann.

https://youtu.be/a5t0PLqMy74

The luxury company within the Volkswagen Group put the inexhaustible genius in charge of the destiny of the most exclusive of the brands in the consortium to achieve what seemed impossible.

Because, after the era of the resurgence of Bugatti with the Veyron, the Chiron, with its twists in the form of the Divo, Pure Sport, La Voiture Noire… the executive heading the company founded by Ettore Bugatti asked himself “What if?“, or, in other words, “and what if?!”

What if we squeeze the W16 block to the maximum, what if we reduce the minimum weight of a car to the limit, what if we draw on our racing heritage… and what if we want to make the ultimate hypercar? The answer has a name: Bugatti Bolide.

Bugatti Bolide: when the limits are set by engineering

The video, which is well worth watching again and again, as the author of this piece has already done, lasts almost a quarter of an hour and shows an exuberant Stephan Winkelmann presenting his latest extreme offering to Bugatti customers.

The film covers the creation process, from the executive’s questioning to the first track outing of one of the units already built, of a machine without equal because, neither in production cars nor in competition cars, does the Bugatti Bolide have a rival.

It is a track car that cannot compete under any regulations. This concept, based on a development entirely free of the rules and regulations that allow a car to be homologated for public roads or to compete in a given championship, makes this Bugatti hybrid, hybrid by nature as it blends production and competition automotive know-how, a wild beast that answers only to a team of engineers whose only limit has been technology itself.

Therefore, structurally, the Bugatti Bolide is built as a racing car, with an architecture based on the most extreme materials available, both in composition and in cost.

For example, the front push-rod suspension anti-roll bar is made of titanium, weighs 100 grams and withstands up to 3.7 tonnes. The driver’s seat, because calling him a driver would be unfair, is positioned inside a carbon-fibre monocoque chassis, practically like those of a Formula 1 car. The tyres used are slicks, with a contact patch width of 400 millimetres for the rear axle.

With all this, the bodywork is an example of the evolution and adaptation of the C-shaped design begun by the Bugatti Chiron, maintained in the Divo and reduced to its minimum expression in the Bugatti Bolide. It also bases its basic lines and displays crosses or X shapes because it draws inspiration, as a tribute, from the aeronautical milestone achieved by military pilot ‘Chuck’ Yeager who, in 1947, broke the sound barrier with his experimental X-1 aircraft, exceeding Mach 1, that is, the speed of sound.

A machine capable of breaking physical and virtual barriers

In any case, the Bugatti Bolide cannot exceed the speed of sound, but it can break the barrier of human logic, and we decipher the enigmatic message concerning the figure 0.67.

Because, with a weight of just 1,240 kg and a power output of 1,850 CV, a power-to-weight and torque-to-weight ratio is achieved that results in the same number but with different units: 0.67. 0.67 kg/CV; 0.67 kg/Nm.

This translates into other equally or even more fascinating figures, such as reaching 0 to 100 km/h in just 2.17 seconds, reaching 200 in 4.36; doing the same up to 300 in 7.37; 400 in 12.08 and, just when it seems the limit has been reached, the Bugatti Bolide reaches 500 kilometres per hour in 20.16 seconds.

On track, this should be confirmed by breaking lap records on the asphalt where both racing cars and production cars run, in races as well as in track sessions or track days.

Aside from the test at the Paul Ricard Circuit, where the legendary Andy Wallace, racing and test driver for the French brand, filmed the video we have included, and where, in a parallel but unofficial way, other enthusiasts have already anticipated what we know today, for now only through simulations run on the most legendary circuits ever designed, we can get an idea of how fast this vehicle is.

The engineers at Bugatti have carried out emulations of the Bugatti Bolide on the track that hosts the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the Circuit de la Sarthe, producing an incredible time: 3 minutes, 7.1 seconds, that is, about 8 seconds faster than the time of the Hyperpole of the Toyota TS050 Hybrid, which started from pole position in the last edition of the quintessential endurance race.

But equally impressive is the time obtained in the simulation on the long layout of the Nürburgring circuit, the Nordschleife: 5 minutes, 23.1 seconds, which, according to this computer recreation, would not allow it to take the fastest lap time set by the Porsche 919 Hybrid once freed from its competitive constraints. Yet it sounds like quite a challenge to shave those just under 4 seconds in real life, with a Bugatti Bolide ready and willing to rise as the ‘king of the Ring’.