Understanding the Bugatti Chiron: The W16 Era at Full Power

Quad-turbo W16, 1,479 hp, and a 304-mph variant: what the Bugatti Chiron is, how its family fits together, and why it defines an era.

The Bugatti Chiron is a mid-engine, two-seat hypercar revealed at the 2016 Geneva Motor Show and built in Molsheim, France through 2024 as the successor to the Veyron.^[1] If the Veyron proved that a genuinely extreme road car could still be civilized, the Chiron’s job was to prove the idea had headroom. It did.

The engine is the identity

Everything about the Chiron radiates from its 8.0-liter quad-turbocharged W16, producing 1,479 hp in standard form and rising to 1,600 PS in higher variants, with 1,600 N·m of torque.^[1] Power reaches all four wheels through a 7-speed Ricardo dual-clutch transmission.^[1] The result: 62 mph arrives in 2.4 seconds, and top speed is electronically limited to 261 mph for safety.^[1] That last clause is the Chiron in one line — a car whose limiter, not its engine, defines the ceiling.

A deliberately small world

Production was capped at roughly 500 units at a base price of 2.4 million euros, and the first 200 had sold before deliveries began in March 2017.^[1] Around the standard car, Bugatti developed a family of variants: the lighter Chiron Sport, the handling-focused Pur Sport, and editions including the Sport 110 Ans Bugatti, Noire, Les Légendes du Ciel, Pur Sport Grand Prix, and Profilée.^[1]

The headline acts

Two cars bookend the Chiron story. The Super Sport 300+, limited to 30 cars, recorded 304.773 mph in testing, planting the marque’s flag past the 300 mph line.^[1] And the one-off Chiron Profilée sold at auction for 9.79 million euros, a measure of what the market believes the end of this era is worth.^[1]

Its place in the lineage

The Chiron closed the chapter the Veyron opened. Its successor, the Tourbillon, moves Bugatti to a hybrid powertrain, which makes the Chiron the final pure expression of the W16 formula: sixteen cylinders, four turbochargers, and no electric assistance. Cars that end an era with the formula at full strength tend to be remembered as the definitive version, and the Chiron makes a strong claim to exactly that.

The full specification record, variant list, and history are on the Bugatti Chiron database page. To see which examples are on the market today, browse the current Chiron inventory.