Bugatti Chiron ‘Profilée’
The last Chiron. And perhaps the most controversial. We’ll come on to that, but in the meantime dit bonjour to the Bugatti Chiron Profilée.
It’s a one-off, based on the Pur Sport. That car, you might remember was the lightest, most track focused Chiron. It wore magnesium wheels, shorter gear ratios that improved sprinting ability (2.3secs to 62mph stat fans!) and a giant six foot wide rear wing.
But Bugatti’s customers (what a demanding bunch they are) wanted more. They asked for a car that combined the dynamic appeal of the Pur Sport, with the more muted aesthetics of the ‘lesser’ Chirons. And so the Profilée was born.
In place of the raised full width wing comes an integrated spoiler that still manages to develop 80 per cent of the Pur Sport’s downforce. And do so more efficiently. While the Pur Sport’s top speed was 218mph, the Profilée is capable of 236mph. The wing serves a double purpose, not only delivering downforce with its top surface, but evacuating hot air from the underside.
Now, the controversy. Here’s Bugatti CEO Christophe Piochon. “We were surprised that we sold all of the Pur Sports. We expected to sell fewer and then we would build maybe 30 Profilées that would complete the production run of 500 Chirons.” However, 60 Pur Sports filled the strictly limited build slots – done, we assume, to retain residual values. So the Profilée now joins the Divo, Centodieci and La Voiture Noire as a one-off.
Which means every owner who fancied a Profilée now can’t have one – unless they head to the Louvre art gallery in Paris on 1 February, where the one-and-only Profilée will be auctioned off, with part of the proceeds going to charity. So that’s a bunch of potential customers, denied the car of their dreams, now getting into a competitive bidding frenzy. How much is that going to fetch? And how upset are those that miss out going to be?
Some more details: the car is named after the Type 46 Profilée, a fastback streamliner from 1931, and finished in a unique shade called Argent Atlantique, developed for this car. The lower surfaces are exposed carbon fibre, tinted blue, and the wheels are unique to this car too. And don’t forget that everything for this one-off has to go through the full suite of development and engineering tests. Including the woven interior, made from over 2.5km of leather strips.