What happens when a regular hypercar just doesn’t do it for you? There’s already a Chiron or two in your garage, you’ve dined with the who’s who of hypercar company bosses, and the existing options just aren’t enough. You commission a true one-off, that’s what. This is the Bugatti Brouillard, a bespoke coupe headlining as the last car ever to feature a W16 engine, and it might be the most expensive Bugatti to date.
Yes, like many top-shelf exotic car brands, Bugatti is branching out into the world of one-offs, by way of a new atelier division called Solitaire. Yes, like the card game, it’s the French word for solitary, a rather literal name for a division capable of rather exclusive whimsy, not to mention giving the ultra-wealthy a new place to spend even more money.
You can think of the Brouillard as essentially a Mistral roadster with a fixed roof, a giant pane of glass where open sky once sat, but it goes deeper than that. Every panel is different, and while the roof rails that really emphasize this car’s cab-forward stance and two massive top-side air intakes that recall the iconic Veyron are the most obvious indicators of serious coachbuilding, you notice more as you look closer.
The entire quarter panels are new to accommodate the fixed roof and reshaped side intakes, while new doors mate up cleanly with new side skirts. The hood vents have migrated to the center of the hood, the front air intakes have been reshaped, and new fenders accommodate large winglets aft of the front wheels. The bright green paint makes it all fairly subtle, but the Brouillard really is entirely new on the outside.
Of course, under the skin, the story’s going to be familiar. This may be the last W16-powered car, but we’ve seen this 1,578-horsepower quad-turbocharged W16 before, along with the transaxle and the bones of the chassis itself. We’re looking at the end of the line for an era of hypercar engineering, the one that popularized the whole word “hypercar.” Prior to the Veyron, things topped out at supercar status. Not anymore.
Oh, and if you’re wondering about the name, Brouillard was the name of Ettore Bugatti’s favorite horse. While we’ve seen horse racing lore make it into cars before, Brouillard was a bit special. As the story goes, this thoroughbred could open his stable door on his own using a mechanism Bugatti engineered in his spare time, which explains the horse motifs on the seats and door cards of this car. Save that for the next time your local pub quiz gets automotive.
So the Brouillard is the last W16 Bugatti, the first coachbuilt one of the modern era, and a proper one-off, but how much does it cost? Well, Bugatti’s hesitant to put a firm figure on it, but it’s not hard to make an educated guess. When Autocar asked Bugatti design chief Frank Heyl if the Brouillard was likely to be the most expensive Bugatti yet, Heyl said “Possibly.” Considering the benchmark is the $18.7 million La Voiture Noire, that almost certainly means we’re looking at a price tag at or above $15 million for the Brouillard. Considering the Mistral carried a price tag of around $5 million, we’re talking about a truly earth-shattering premium. Most people won’t earn $10 million in a lifetime, but here it is, being spent to turn a hypercar into something even more special. Then again, perhaps the Bugatti Brouillard will be one of those blue-chip cars. After all, the Bugatti W16 defined the first phase of the hypercar era, and the last car to be fitted with that monstrous engine is something you won’t see another of.
Top graphic image: Bugatti
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