Bugatti Mistral Roadster Closes the Curtain on the Powerful W-16 Engine

Bugatti wasn't kidding when it said the car it plans to unveil at the 2022 Monterey Car Week is "the last car of its kind."

That's because the new Bugatti Mistral Roadster, unveiled late Friday on the California coast, will be powered by the powerful quad-turbo 8.0-liter W-16 engine that debuted in the original Veyron in 2005 and has powered every Bugatti since, It turned out to be the last car for the French brand.

However, while Bugatti plans electric cars in the future, it has not yet abandoned the internal combustion engine. A successor to the Chiron is planned for later this decade, and is expected to be a hybrid vehicle with a smaller engine than the W-16 and more power-oriented than conventional hybrids.

For now, however, Bugatti's focus is on the Mistral, which, like the Maserati, borrows its name from the winds of the French Riviera, a roadster with a design and philosophy inspired by the 1934 Bugatti Type 57 Roadster Grand Raid, the Chiron It is the only convertible planned on the platform.

Development was not easy. The Chiron's carbon fiber monocoque structure was not designed for open-top driving, so not only did the monocoque have to be redesigned, but its shape had to be altered to allow for an attractive design that did not compromise performance.

The engine is a 1,578 hp version of the W-16 prepared for special models such as the Chiron Supersport 300+ and other Chiron-based cars in limited numbers, and although performance figures are unknown, Bugatti has stated that it aims to set a land speed record for open-top production cars stated that it is aiming to set a land speed record for an open-top production car.

It is already known that the closed-roof Chiron Supersport 300+ with the same engine reached 304.773 mph in 2019, and for the open-top record, the Mistral is on track to beat Hennessey's 2016 Venom GT Spyder record of It would only need to reach 265.6 mph. The only problem is that Hennessey has a new 1,817-horsepower Venom F5 Roadster that is eager to make this record its own.

But like all Bugattis, except perhaps for the track-only Volide, the Mistral conveys a sense of elegance and comfort as well as performance. The front design is similar to La Voiture Noir, a one-off model also based on the Chiron platform, but the headlights here have four bars in reference to the four turbochargers of the W-16 engine. The taillights are also a reference to the engine, with four light bars extending from the center, representing the engine's four cylinder banks coupled to a single crankshaft.

The body is a true roadster, with the windscreen kept short to keep the ride height as low as possible. They are low enough that a line can be drawn from the top of the windscreen along the side glass to the top of the side intakes. These side intakes are joined by two new ram induction intakes behind the headrests that also serve as roll hoops. Made of carbon fiber, each of these intakes is strong enough to support the weight of the car during a rollover. In addition, because of their proximity to the headrests, the intake noise at throttle will be unmatched by any other Bugatti equipped with this engine.

The interior design and layout is similar to the Chiron, but with a few unique touches. The list includes the woven leather used on the door panels, the silhouettes of the car on either side of the center console, and the wood and amber inserts of Bugatti's famous dancing elephant motif on the gear lever.

"The combination of the roadster format and our W-16 powertrain is absolute perfection," Bugatti Rimac CEO Mate Rimac said in a statement.

"By removing the roof and driving the W-16 Mistral with its two large air intakes directly behind your head, which pump approximately 70,000 liters of air per minute into the engine, you can experience the intricacies of this revolutionary powertrain like no Bugatti has ever done before.

Limited to 99 units, priced at 5 million euros, deliveries of the Mistral are scheduled to begin in 2024. In case you were wondering, the entire production run has already sold out.