Twenty years after the game-changing Bugatti Veyron entered production and eight years after the Chiron was unveiled, it’s time for a new Bugatti , and the French brand’s latest hypercar is unlike anything that’s come before it. Enter the Bugatti Tourbillon. Powered by a new V16 plug-in-hybrid powertrain, built on a new structure and featuring a spectacular design inside and out, Bugatti’s goal for the Tourbillon is for it to remain timeless “for all eternity.
” CEO Mate Rimac says Ettore Bugatti’s sentiments of “if comparable it is no longer Bugatti” and “nothing is too beautiful” were his main guiding paths for the new model, the first one developed under the Bugatti-Rimac venture that was established in 2021. Three iconic Bugattis were chosen as inspiration: The Type 57SC Atlantic , the Type 35 , and the Type 41 Royale . The new car needed to feature design and engineering techniques that would ensure the car will look at home on concours lawns into the next centuries, as modern technology can get dated fast.
Thus the name: Tourbillon is a type of watchmaking invented by Swiss-French genius Abraham-Louis Breguet in which the balance wheel and escapement are mounted in a rotating cage to counteract gravity and increase accuracy in their timekeeping. Such mechanisms are still the pinnacle of watchmaking, says Bugatti, and the Tourbillon certainly seems like the pinnacle of the automotive realm — Rimac calls it “more elegant, more emotive and more lux.