Bugatti’s latest multimillion hypercar trades top speed for fun

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  Bugatti had planned to debut its new Chiron Pur Sport at this year's Geneva auto show, but COVID-19 scuttled that idea. Earlier in July, the car did finally make it to the Swiss city for a photo shoot, however. [credit: Bugatti ]

When Ferdinand Piech resurrected Bugatti in 1998, he gave the company an engineering brief: build a car with at least 986hp (735kW), capable of 249mph (400km/h). Oh, and it had to be as drivable as a Volkswagen Golf. That car became the Veyron EB 16.4, and when it went into production in 2005, it met that challenge, boasting 1,001 metric horsepower (987hp/736kW) and a top speed of 253mph (408km/h), all for a cool million Euros (or about $1.3 million at the time).

But that was just the starting point. In 2016, the brand followed up the Veyron with the Chiron, another mid-engined two-seater, powered by another quad-turbo 8.0L W16 engine. The price of admission had gone up, but so had the power and top speed, a trend that has continued with derivatives like the Chiron Super Sport that reached an almost unbelievable 305mph (490km/h) in testing last year.

Slower, but quicker?

Topping that number seems difficult, which may be why the latest iteration of the Chiron-called the Chiron Pur Sport-is actually the slowest Bugatti since the EB110 of the mid-90s. Slowest as in top speed, at least, as the Pur Sport is electronically limited to a mere 218mph (350km/h). The Pur Sport might not be the fastest Bugatti, but it may well be the quickest.

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