Bugatti Veyron Successor: Chiron

What's up with that little dividing wall between the seats right at about where your head is?
Its also a throwback to the design of the Bugatti 57SC Atlantic from 1937.
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I have to say that those sunroofs look to have been designed with as little panache as possible. They're like a cheap after-market job from the 70's. I'd expect more from Bugatti. It's like no thought went into the shape of them at all. It's as if VW found some left over Mk1 Passat estate rear windows gathering dust in a warehouse and thought 'those will do'.

Not too into the Chiron but I will say that sunroof is just awesome. I'd love to see something like that trickle down to more normal cars in the future.

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I have to say that those sunroofs look to have been designed with as little panache as possible. They're like a cheap after-market job from the 70's. I'd expect more from Bugatti. It's like no thought went into the shape of them at all. It's as if VW found some left over Mk1 Passat estate rear windows gathering dust in a warehouse and thought 'those will do'.
I'm in agreement. I really like the split sunroof and generally the idea of having a glass roof on a car like the Chiron, but what bothers me is the lack of any real style in the way they did it, apart from the fact that there are two windows instead of one. Porsche, Bugatti's much more affordable stablemate, style their glass roofs so that they blend into the front and rear screens and look rather good, IMO:

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What's missing for me is both a level of sharpness and a level of continuity with the rest of the styling on the Chiron. A few minutes and I came up with this, which I think looks much better:

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By giving them straight back edges (doable even with some black plastic) I think it blends better with the cutline int he body, the side window profile, and gives a somewhat more directional feel.
 
They look like targa tops the more I see them. The fact they don’t blend in with the body and literally look like Bugatti will just cut a hole into whatever car is ordered with them doesn’t help.
 
Just needs a license plate that reads "BAN ONE"

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In Bugatti's defense, they look pretty awesome from the interior IMO. Also, the Chiron has a frankly astonishing 60,000NM/deg torsional rigidity (for comparison, a typical steel unibody is like 12,000NM/deg) so I'm sure they had to retain some structure through the center of the roof to retain that stiffness figure.
 
I'd be more curious to know why so much attention is going into the top of the exterior of a car, something that rarely gets critiqued, rather than the actual looks of the inside, where you'll be looking out of more than you will be standing outside of it saying, "Gee, I really wish these edges weren't so rounded off.."
 
I'd be more curious to know why so much attention is going into the top of the exterior of a car, something that rarely gets critiqued, rather than the actual looks of the inside, where you'll be looking out of more than you will be standing outside of it saying, "Gee, I really wish these edges weren't so rounded off.."

Many more people are likely to be viewing a Chiron from the outside in rather than the inside out and the interior is, from what i can see, no different to a regular Chiron. We've all sat in cars with sunroofs before, it's not like it's some incredible new feature Bugatti's just come up with.
 
I'd be more curious to know why so much attention is going into the top of the exterior of a car, something that rarely gets critiqued, rather than the actual looks of the inside, where you'll be looking out of more than you will be standing outside of it saying, "Gee, I really wish these edges weren't so rounded off.."

I think you may be overestimating just how much time the average Bugatti owner spends driving their Bugatti.

It's normally not something I'd give a second thought to, but I know if I were spending $3,000,000+ on a car I'd hope they put more thought into the sunroof than a Jetta. Especially since they appear to be static, which means they had much more freedom with the shape of the things.


Don't get me wrong, it's still a gorgeous car, the sunroof just seems like kind of an afterthought in a car so expensive that not even the shape of the seatbelt buckle should be an afterthought.
 
The appreciation for the option will not be felt while outside of the car. That's the point.

Like I said, you don't think to yourself that you wish/you're satisfied that you chose said option while you're outside of the car, because nothing will evoke you to think of such when doing so. It's when you're inside that triggers the thought process.

And a sun/moonroof is simply as it is. It's not like people are expecting someone else to come out with something completely new than what we've been accustomed to. Christ, people can't even be thankful that there is an option for such instead of it being a standard, non-replaceable feature.
 
Top Gear has just posted that Bugatti has eclipsed the 300mph barrier with a modified Chiron and the infamous, Andy Wallace at the wheel, hitting a VMax of 304.77mph.


You can read about it here: https://www.topgear.com/car-news/bugatti-has-broken-300mph-barrier

The interesting bit is here though, as Winkelmann says Bugatti will now bow out of the run for building the world's fastest production cars & focus elsewhere. It goes on to end that a Super Sport variant will undoubtedly be bred from this achievement.
“Bugatti has once again shown what it’s capable of. With this new record of the Chiron we enter again uncharted territory. Never before has a series manufacturer reached this high speed,” says Stephan Winkelmann, President of Bugatti. “Our goal was to be the first manufacturer ever to reach the magic 300mph mark. We have now achieved this – making ourselves, the entire team and myself, incredibly proud.” With this record, Bugatti will also withdraw from the competition to produce the fastest serial production cars. “We have shown several times that we build the fastest cars in the world. In future we will focus on other areas,” says Winkelmann.
 
The interesting bit is here though, as Winkelmann says Bugatti will now bow out of the run for building the world's fastest production cars & focus elsewhere.
It's quite a mic drop certainly. Even if people go faster, it'll be fairly meaningless - Bugatti was the first to hit 300 so they'll always have that, and I feel fairly confident in saying no production car will ever hit 400 - or 350, maybe not even 325 - so the last production car speed barrier will forever be Bugatti's.

My ultimate wish would be that the top speed and acceleration dong-waving goes away entirely now and people concentrate on reducing weight and improving involvement, but I suspect that's a step too far. Electric SUVs seem like the path the industry's going in...
 
It's quite a mic drop certainly. Even if people go faster, it'll be fairly meaningless - Bugatti was the first to hit 300 so they'll always have that, and I feel fairly confident in saying no production car will ever hit 400 - or 350, maybe not even 325 - so the last production car speed barrier will forever be Bugatti's.

My ultimate wish would be that the top speed and acceleration dong-waving goes away entirely now and people concentrate on reducing weight and improving involvement, but I suspect that's a step too far. Electric SUVs seem like the path the industry's going in...
I wouldn't be surprised if Hennessey or Koenigsegg though, push to hit 305Mph+ only to say that at least the cars their clients actually own, can do the same.

But, I share your sentiment. It will always be Bugatti's record now for a manufacturer-built vehicle, and if this achievement spurs Bugatti in new directions like a 4-door or SUV, well... one can say the last 15 years have been a tour de force for the brand, catapulted into arguably, the top of the exotic world. It seems comforting that Piech witnessed his creation hit 1 last milestone before his passing.
 
What a car and what a bombshell. Certainly didn't expect that when I read the news on TG.com today. They really want that record before Koenigsegg/Hennessey/SSC stole their thunder :lol:

I'd be more impressed if they announced this as the Super Sport version for public sale though, and did the run in 2 directions so it's Guinness certified like the 'Egg. As it is, it seems a bit "last gasp" for me with a special heavily modified car and under perfect conditions. I mean we've seen a road legal modified Ford GT do the same. And the Agera RS record was a run of the mill customer's car on a bumpy public highway, and the car was still accelerating at top speed (i.e. gearing limited). The Jesko, if CvK so chooses, will undoubtedly blow this one. Doesn't change the fact that the first to reach 300 mph is still mighty impressive though 👍

It's quite a mic drop certainly. Even if people go faster, it'll be fairly meaningless - Bugatti was the first to hit 300 so they'll always have that, and I feel fairly confident in saying no production car will ever hit 400 - or 350, maybe not even 325 - so the last production car speed barrier will forever be Bugatti's.

There's still one milestone to go: 500 km/h (~312.5 mph). For some reason speed records in miles always seems to hold more cachet, but I'm a metric man :lol: I agree with the advent of electrification and autonomous cars we probably won't see 400 mph or 600 km/h on a mass produced car. If this means the top speed wars can finally be over and we can focus back on simple, lightweight and more dynamically capable cars then I'm happy to have seen the peak of ICE automobiles in my lifetime :bowdown:
 
It is clear that buggatti no longer sees much bennefit in producing the worlds fastest production car.

This thing seems a bit like a middle finger to all of the other companies going for the record, which i find kind of funny. In reality, having the worlds fastest production car for a year or two ust to beaten by the next company in line just seems like a waste of time, and it seems that bugatti shares this sentiment.
 
Bugatti is the only brand that has a safe place to test it, if this record gets beaten on a public road that's honestly going to be scary.
 
I'd be highly surprised if Bugatti doesn't make a run of them at some point. There'll be a queue of buyers out there wanting a 300mph car.
Are those buyers still interested if the car has only one seat, a roll cage and an incredibly low ride height?

I was far more impressed by the Agera RS customer car doing the speed that it did on public roads. The Bugatti headline was initially impressive, but then reading about the car in question, how it wasn't a production car or even road legal, quickly dissipated any awe I had. Does Bugatti want the general public to be impressed that they did what small tuning companies have done before, except with the world's best high speed test track at their disposal?

As for Winkelmann stating they are out of the records game now, who knows how long that will be true. The guy exudes the qualities of a pretentious salesman and went from saying that he isn't interested in a Chiron top speed run 9 months ago to today celebrating Bugatti's 300 mph run.
 
Are those buyers still interested if the car has only one seat, a roll cage and an incredibly low ride height?
I don't see why not. A 300mph car (from a proper brand like Bugatti rather than a tweaked Ford GT or something) should be a pretty easy sell whatever it's like.

That said, in purely technical terms I doubt either the single seat or roll cage have much bearing on the car's top-speed (the ride height probably does) so you could probably do a properly-trimmed car that was still theoretically capable of hitting 300.

I doubt most existing Chiron and Veyron owners have even hit 200, so it's more about the potential when selling someone a car like that than it is the reality.
 

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