The Bugatti Bolide – X Factor unleashed
Ever since Stephen Winkelmann took Bugatti under his reign the brand seems to be unstoppable with new releases trying to cater to their varied consumer base. Now that other brands are making Track Focused Hypercars a trend for example – McLaren P1 & Senna GTR, Aston Martin Vulcan, Ferrari’s FXX cars, the French automaker wanted to enter the space and set a benchmark by demonstrating their engineering prowess in the field.
The brand has had racing DNA rooted in its veins right from the beginning when the founder Ettore Bugatti took his upgraded creations racing and started winning them instantly.
The brand has seen many changes in leadership over the course of a century but the ethos of “engineering something that was ahead of its time” always stayed at the core of every creation. The inspiration behind the Bolide was one of the most victorious cars, a legend in the racing history that the world had ever seen the TYPE-35 and at its time in the 1920s, it brought ridiculous figures with it much like the Bolide brings with it today.
The Type-35 had a 2.3-liter inline 8-cylinder engine which was later supercharged to draw more power out of it. How much you may ask……well at its time the Bugatti could touch 215kmph with its 140ps of power which led it to win a total of more than 2000 races and in 1924 it was a lot, for example, one of the bestselling cars from that year the Oakland 6-54 didn’t even produce half of what the Type 35 did.
Bugatti Bolide is an embodiment of a radical yet not completely impossible idea and it’s has a lot going for it. Starting with some figures the famous quad-turbo W16 engine previously seen producing a whooping 1500 bhp and 1600 Nm of torque at its peak in the Pur Sport but that just wasn’t enough for the radical tag so the power output was increased to 1850 hp and 1850 Nm of torque all thanks to the new high-pressure turbos and new air to air intercooler and an upgraded oil sump, these figures According to their CEO are just a portrayal of what the W16 unit is capable of without baggage.
The term without baggage is apt cause it’s built on a Carbon Monocoque chassis which is shorter than the Chiron and where the exterior is heavily stripped out to a bare minimum with a layered front splitter and a triple-layered rear diffuser.
It also sports a big air scoop to feed air to those quad turbos with an innovative bubble surface where the bubbles rise by 5 millimeters to smoothen the airflow moving towards the two-step fin wing. It has X design head & taillamps which are a nod to Bell X-1 flown by Chuck Yeager in 1947.
Bolide’s dry weight is just 1240 kilos, it’s 100kgs lighter than a Cayman GT4 that’s 750 kgs less than an ordinary Chiron (I never in my life thought I’d call a Chiron “Ordinary” but here we are, guess it’s true when they say 2020 is full of unexpected things) – weight reduction was possible due to use of technologies like 3D printing and hollow components which are fastened by titanium screws.
These numbers generate a power to weight ratio of 0.67 kg/PS which would humiliate Koenigsegg One:1. The Downforce generated to keep this monster grounded is around 1800 Kgs at the rear and 800kgs at the front.
Looking at how all the power is put to the ground; we can see the girthiest pair of slicks coming in at 340mm at the front axle and wide 400mm at the rear axle.
This rubber is mounted to 18-inch forged magnesium wheels saving weight.
Only 30% of the overall body is painted which suggests how raw it intends to be. In descending order, a Bolide has around 70% of the exterior in non-painted carbon, where the Pur Sport (the road-legal track-focused Bug) has 30% of the exterior body is in naked carbon and lastly, the normal Chiron which has around 10% of its exterior in carbon.
All of these design ergonomics and power production enable it to achieve some crazy speed and concerning time it is capable of doing wonders on any track. As per Bugatti under simulation, the figures achieved for Bolide are as follows
| 0 – 100 km/h | 2.17 s |
| 0 – 200 km/h | 4.36 s |
| 0 – 300 km/h | 7.37 s |
| 0 – 400 km/h | 12.08 s |
| 0 – 500 km/h | 20.16 s |
| 0 – 400 – 0 km/h | 24.64 s |
| 0 – 500 – 0 km/h | 33.62 s |
Astonishing Figures put down by the Bugatti Bolide under simulation
These figures are just bonkers and it suggests that Bugatti is capable of shattering the world top speed record which is currently held by SSC Tuatara after their controversial run. On a track like Nürburgring Nordschleife, this unhinged beast is expected to deliver a 5.23.1-minute lap time which is just 3.5 secs off what Porsche did with 919 Hybrid EVO.
Bugatti says this was a concept just intended to portray what radical beast can be built around their mega W16 engine. It’s the most ultimate, raw & unprecedented experience one can expect from the house of Bugatti. We hope to see this track-focused hypercar makes it to production.
Written by – Vighnesh Jha
Compiled by – Tirth Pandya
