Bugatti will auction its one-off Chiron Profilée this week, giving the world’s wealthiest car fans their last ever chance to buy a brand new W16-powered Molsheim missile. The entire Chiron production run is sold out, so lot 177 at RM Sotheby’s Paris sale on February 1 really is a fairly significant sale. The car itself is also pretty special. Designed in response to customer requests for something more extreme than the Chiron Sport but less track-focused than the Pur Sport, it could have spawned a short production run, but Bugatti had no spare production capacity so it ended up being a one-off.
The Profilée name was borrowed from
aero-conscious cars from Bugatti’s back catalog and the modern version also
features a similar upswept tail not seen on any other Chiron. It also features
a unique design of alloy wheel and a special color scheme that fuses a light
Argent Atlanique silver blue with a Blue Royal Carbon tint for the lower
sections of exposed composite bodywork.
There’s more blue in the cabin, which gets
special woven leather trim on the door trims and center tunnel to deliver a far
more luxurious feel than in the Alcantara-covered Pur Sport. But the two
hypercars are more alike under the skin thanks to the Profilée’s suspension
setup, which features stiffer springs and more negative camber than the Chiron Sport.
Both the Profilée and Pur Sport use the
standard 1,479 hp quad-turbo W16 engine fitted to the base Chiron,
rather than the 1,578 hp version found in the Super Sport, and
Centodieci. But they also get a shorter final drive that gives them much
snappier acceleration, while the Profilée’s more slippery shape gives it a 380 km/h top speed versus 350 km/h for the Pur Sport.
The 60 examples of the Pur Sport cost US$ 3.6
million, but the Profilée’s one-off status means it’s going to smash past that
figure when the hammer falls this Wednesday.
