Simply Abu Dhabi XXXIV

2 2 1 S I M P LY A B U DH A B I If left at full noise, its 100-litre fuel tank is drained empty in less than eight minutes thanks to those turbos sitting on 1.85 bar of boost which they claim is the equivalent of 1,300kg atop each of its 16 pistons. Bugatti’s Jekyll and Hyde persona from the Chiron and Veyron thankfully remains untouched. Back it off to 60km/h and with its VW Group-infused interior and copious amounts of leather, you could be forgiven for thinking you were cruising around in a Bentley Continental GT. There’s no boy-racer carbon fibre accents, race harness belt buckles or cramped cockpit to shout its speed credentials. It has more headroom than an AMG GT or Aston Martin and is one of the most civilised cars you could find for a gentle cruise. I would go so far as to say the Chiron Sport is a more useable daily driver than any of the two-seaters from Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren and maybe even Porsche’s stripped-out and caged GT2 and GT3. Supremely faster and more luxurious, the Chiron Sport is not what you’d call completely practical, but it does have room for a 66-litre suitcase in the nose which makes it more useable than most that boast substantially less power. Compared to its stripped-out competitors, the Chiron’s interior is a tremendously luxurious environment. The powered seats are supportive in a firm way, not good for an all-day stint but okay for a few hours, while the feeling of width inside is accentuated by a slim centre console milled from a solid billet of aluminium. This houses all the comfort and convenience gauges while a swoopy LED divider down the centre gives the feeling of the driver sitting in his own cockpit. Where you will find raw carbon fibre and Alcantara in other supercars, the Chiron is a cabin filled with solid billet metal hardware and the finest grade leather, while an outstanding Accuton sound system that uses a one-carat diamond membrane in each of its four tweeters delivers outstanding quality audio. Company president, StephanWinkelmann said that the key to Chiron’s demand, being sold out until the beginning of 2022, is down to constant fine-tuning and diversifying with variations like the Divo. “Despite being sold out until the end of 2021, we are still working on the rest of production and we have a lot of ideas and a lot of products in the pipeline, so there will be more. (see separate story). “We have to work constantly on what is coming next,” he said. The recent Geneva show gave a hint with the stunningly stealthy AED68.7 million La Voiture Noire which was sitting over our shoulder, having made its first stop in Dubai as part of an exclusive lap of the world this year. “We were surprised by the reaction to La Voiture Noire in Geneva as there was a lot of fuss about electric cars but in the end all the talk from the show was about this. “We created a new stand to cater for three cars and it was a fitting way to start the celebrations for Bugatti’s 110th anniversary,”Winkelmann said. Development began on La Voiture Noire in early January for a customer as a one-off, so while the display model is a mock-up, it shows Bugatti’s desire to build completely bespoke cars like this which features a customised, longer wheelbase over the Chiron. La Voiture Noire will delivered to its owner in 2021 but not before it visits Ville D’Este and Pebble Beach first. “For us it is more of a problem to find the time to develop these types of cars than finding the people to buy them because it involves a lot of people to work on it and yet we have customers who want us to build them something special. “We could do more this year because it’s a good year to bring together our history with the present to celebrate our anniversary and pick different eras to highlight,” he said. That’s all well and good, but where you go from the Chiron Sport in terms of building the ultimate, extreme example of a four-wheeled land beast, I have no idea.