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Bugatti Bolide: The Most Beautiful Hypercar
“The Bugatti Bolide was inspired by the weight-to-power philosophy of a young Ettore Bugatti, who upturned the world of motorsport in the 1920s by designing lightweight and nimble cars, such as the Type 35, that became practically unbeatable.”
◙ By Phil Foo
Exotic hypercars are awesome. They look awesome, drive like they want to knock the socks off lesser drivers, and they most certainly attract eyeballs like moths to light. Personally, I have been drooling over exotic hypercars since I was a little boy. Well, there was no hypercar then, only supercars. I was one of those boys that many a car journalist wrote and still writes about; the ones that grew up with posters of supercars on the bedroom wall.
These days there are more exotic hypercars. Some with well-known racing heritage stretching back to a time that qualifies starting a children story book with; ‘once upon a time.’ Then there are those that started out as fun engineering projects that ended up becoming sexy looking, speed destroying machines. They all look good. Some look really hot and sexy. Amongst them, one stands out; The Bugatti Bolide.
The award winning Bugatti Bolide with doors open. Bugatti Design Director Achim Anscheidt (Right), and Nils Sajonz, Bugatti Design Head of Special Projects (left), with the Bugatti Bolide.
Bugatti, the French car maker known for making hypercars that goes really fast, developed a piece of art that is the lightest and most track-focused concept car, and they christened it the Bolide (pronounced Bo-lid). The Bolide was named the world’s most beautiful hypercar by a substantial margin among four finalists, during the 36 Festival Automobile International in Paris by an expert panel of design professional.
“The Bolide was an entirely different challenge for our design team, and a kind of mental experiment where we stripped the car back to its W16 quad-turbocharged heart and rebuild it with the bare minimum to create the most extreme Bugatti yet. The key for us was to respect the technical requirements of Bolide, focusing first on the function and only then developing the form. It’s an honour for us that the resulting design has won such a highly coveted award, voted for by experts in our field. Praise must go to the entire design team, each dedicated to their craft in harmonizing and perfecting all aspects of the Bolide’s design during an innovative four-months, purely digital process,”
– Bugatti Design Director Achim Anscheidt.
Some of the colours the Bugatti Bolide may come in.
The Bolide certainly looked awesome. Personally I think that it is the most impressive looking hypercar there is to date. One of the first things that caught my eye are the Xs that can be seen at many places on the car. The two Xs up front are actually functioning headlights inspired by the racing cars back in the day where an X is taped onto the headlights to prevent broken glass shards from flying about and hitting the driver should it break.
The front of the Bolide with the X headlamps, intakes, carbon fibre lips, etc.
The rear looks awesome too with a huge X making up the rear lamps, sitting under the dominant rear wing that provides awesome levels of downforce for optimum traction in high speed corners. At the centre of the X rear lamps sits four impressive looking tailpipes. Below the large X rear lamps are large striking rear diffuser. From the rear the Bolide looks more like a spaceship than a car.
The rear of the Bolide looks like a spaceship or a jet. Well, the design is based on experimental jets.
Another thing one will notice when looking at the Bolide are the numerous air ducts on the front and sides. They are functional, moving air into areas that needs cooling such as the large brakes, the monstrous engine, etc. and getting hot air out. The design of the Bolide’s front end is more aerodynamic sophisticated Formula 1 car than a hypercar.
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Like all track-focused cars, the Bolide sits exceptionally low to lower the centre of gravity. Together with the large rear wing, and diffusers, the Bolide is made to swallow up the track and do so fast in the most efficient manner. The Bolide’s track-focused design extends into the teardrop cabin where the seating position is ground-hugging.
Notice the air scoop on top of the cabin. Inside the cabin of the Bolide; although all parts are unique to the Bolide, the design is still very much Bugatti.
One thing to note is that no trim parts are borrowed from other Bugatti cars. The cabin uses a functional design optimised for a racing car without the luxuries of road-going hypercars. The minimalist design employed here is to reduce distractions to the minimum, allowing the driver to be fully focused on the driving. That said, there is a clear Bugatti identity in the cabin of the Bolide.
The Bugatti Bolide looking awesome in black and yellow.
Earlier on in this article I did write that the Bolide is the lightest and most track-focused concept car. Well, it is. The whole idea of the Bolide is to create a very light track-focused car. To do so, Bugatti’s design team stripped the car back to its iconic W16 quad-turbocharged engine and rebuilt it from there using mainly lightweight materials such as carbon fibre, and titanium.
The Bolide’s lightweight carbon fibre body.
The objective is to bring the weight down to the lowest possible and to be as aerodynamic as possible. Bugatti says that the production version of the Bolide will have a curb weight of just 1,450 kilograms, and therefore a weight-to-power ratio of 0.9 kilograms per PS when 98 RON gas is used. This is made possible due to optimizations in the areas of design, aerodynamics, quality, and safety.
Watch the world premier of the Bugatti Bolide by Bugatti.
Bugatti plans to produce a limited number of Bolides; only 40 units. Should you be interested in securing yourself a Bugatti Bolide, they come at a net unit price of four million euros each, with the first deliveries scheduled for 2024. Prices stated do not include duties and taxes that individual countries may impose on imports.
*Photos courtesy of BUGATTI AUTOMOBILES S.A.S.
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