Bugatti has finally finished testing the production Bolide. The wild-winged, track-only hypercar looks as extreme as the concept launched four years ago, and after extensive evaluation on a plethora of racing circuits, deliveries to customers will begin soon. If these few buyers take their Bolide to a track, they might get a taste of what it’s like to drive a Formula 1 car – according to Bugatti, anyway.
This is not an exaggeration. The production Bolide has 1,578 horsepower from its W-16 engine, matching the output of its street-legal siblings. It’s considerably lighter, however, weighing about 3,200 pounds versus 4,300 for a full-fat Chiron. The current generation of Formula 1 cars are said to have around 1,000 hp, so the Bolide certainly has a power advantage. But the weight largely favors F1.
But it’s apparently close enough to give the Bolide bragging rights. Bugatti driver Andy Wallace says the performance is on a completely different level to other cars he has driven, immensely capable but still easy to handle at the limit. And oh yeah, it’s fast too.
“The feeling when you come out of a corner and step on the throttle and feel that relentless rush of power is incomparable,” he said. “You come out of that corner at 100 km/h, and from there to 200 km/h and then 300 km/h, it’s an absolute revelation. In this specific scenario, the Bolide would be moving away from a Formula car 1.”
12 Pictures
The production Bolide is a little tamer than the concept. Originally developing 1,826 hp with a theoretical top speed over 300 mph, the version people can buy only tops out at 236 mph. Sticking with the F1 comparison, Bugatti points out that that’s faster than the current F1 speed record (231 mph), but as we all know, racing isn’t just about pushing yourself to bottom. The engineers tuned the Bolide so that it could be manipulated. Engineers claim it can pull 2.5 g per turn. This is impressive, but well below the 5g of cornering experienced by F1 drivers.
Still, the Bolide should be a real machine on the track. And for what it’s worth, we hope these cars are driven to the max at least once in their lives. But with a price tag of $4 million and only 40 examples planned for production, we suspect most will be destined for climate-controlled collections.
