If you detest paying more than Manufacturers Suggested Retail Price for a new car, consider what happened at RM Sotheby’s sale in Paris this week. Bugatti not only marked the end of an era this week, it set a new record for a new car sold at auction.
The Bugatti Chiron Profilée, one of one produced, fetched €9,792,500 ($10,632,990.27) at RM Sotheby’s Paris sale, making it the most valuable new car ever sold at auction and double its double pre-sale estimate of €4,200,000-€5,500,000. The price was achieved after an extended bidding war erupted among collectors in the room at the Salles du Carrousel in the Louvre Palace, as well as on the phones and online.
The Bugatti Chiron Profilée was developed with the intention of producing it. But the Chiron, limited to 500 units, sold out during the model’s development, making this the only one the company will build. The vehicle is based on the Chiron Pur Sport, the Chiron variant most geared toward racing. The Profilée offers the athleticism of the Pur Sport, but without the loud visual vocabulary.
“Despite all the developments and tests we had already done, we could not bring the Profilée to production,” said Christophe Piochon, president of Bugatti Automobiles. “But how could we not finish such a beautifully designed and engineered car?”
And it will perform
The Pur Sport’s 8.0-liter W-16 engine and 7-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission reach a top speed of 218 mph. In comparison, the Chiron Profilée’s top speed is 236 mph. Reaching 62 mph (100 kph) takes a mere 2.3 seconds, the same as the Pur Sport, achieving 124 mph (200 kph) requires 5.5 seconds.
The car wears unique Argent Atlantique paint alongside the lower body’s Bleu Royal Carbon finish. Inside, the interior is trimmed in woven leather on the center console, dashboard, door panels and rear wall. It’s swathed in blue leather, with an instrument cluster finished in a black anodized aluminum housing.
A hypercar’s chronicle
The Chiron arrived in March 2016 replacing the Veyron in the Bugatti line-up. Like the Veyron, the Chiron was powered by a comprehensively updated 8.0-liter W-16 powerplant, and fitted with four larger turbochargers. It was followed by the Chiron Pur Sport, distinguished by its prominent 74.8-inch-wide rear wing. This and other enhancements led Bugatti driver Andy Wallace to achieve a record-breaking 304.773 mph in 2019.
But it was too much for some buyers, and work began on the Chiron Profilée, splitting the difference between the base Sport and Pur Sport. The Chiron, however, had a production cap of 500 units, all of which were sold during the creation of the Chiron Profilée. So, Bugatti finished the one it was developing.
The Chiron’s turbocharged W-16 will be used for the last time in the 2024 Bugatti Mistral, which is a topless version of the Chiron with different styling and a host of engineering updates. Costing a cool $5 million each, the 99-unit run is already sold out.
Given that Croatian EV maker Rimac now controls Bugatti, the ultra-luxury carmaker’s future is undoubtably electric.
