8 Fascinating Facts About The Bugatti Chiron's Production
The ladies and gents at Bugatti love to shout about superlatives and crazy facts. And who can blame them: they build one of the most expensive cars mankind has ever seen, a car that’s essentially designed to win every game of top trumps going.
Also, they know full well that people like us lap up bonkers details, like the Chiron having the longest light conductor ever fitted to a car, and the biggest clutch ever seen in a road-going motor. So, Bugatti is at it again, this time releasing a tonne of information about its Molsheim facility and the production process of the Chiron, which is now underway. Here are some of the details that caught our attention…
Small team, small production output
As you’d expect, Molsheim isn’t churning out cars at a ridiculous rate. Instead just 70 Chirons will be built in 2017, with a small team of just 20 people assembling each one. There are six months between the beginning of production to customer delivery, and each car is made up of over 1800 individual parts.
The 'conductive' floor is clean enough to eat off (probably)
The ‘Atelier’ part of the Bugatti factory - where the Chiron is assembled - has a floor space of 1000 square metres, and is finished in gloss white which Bugatti says “creates an atmosphere comparable with the catwalk of a fashion house.” Erm, right. To us, it’s more reminiscent of McLaren’s factory floor, where gloss white floor tiles make it nice and easy to locate and sort out spillages, promoting an ultra-clean manufacturing atmosphere.
At the Bugatti facility, the floor is made from epoxy, and is conductive “ensuring the dissipation of any electrostatic charges”.
The 'marriage' looks incredible
OK, so this isn’t exactly a fascinating fact, but we want to talk about it simply because the image above is pure engineering filth. It shows ‘the marriage’, where the partially completed rear end is pushed together with the monocoque. After that, it’s attached with 14 massive titanium bolts, each of which weighs just 34g.
The engine is enormously heavy
You don’t create an 8.0-litre, quad-turbo W16 without ending up with something that weighs quite a lot. And by quite a lot, we mean 628kg. To put that in context, the old BMW S65 4.0-litre V8 weighs just 202kg, although that didn’t put out 1478bhp. Bugatti is also keen to point out that the W16 is no heavier than the older version found in the Veyron.
The side panels are huge
The Chiron’s bodywork includes one massive side panel that stretches all the way from the A pillar right to the car’s shapely rear. According to Bugatti, it’s “the largest single exterior carbon fibre part in the car industry.”
It's tested on the most powerful dyno...in the world
Bugatti had to significantly upgrade the dynamometer it used for the Veyron in order to cope with all the extra power. During testing, a whopping 1200 amps of electricity are generated, which is fed back into the grid.
Each car takes three weeks to paint
If someone spends €2.4 million on a car, they expect the paintwork to be top notch. As such, each Chiron takes around three weeks to paint. The painted cars then spend six hours in a light tunnel with a very thorough chap inspecting every little bit of the finish, rectifying any defects spotted.
It's put through a 'monsoon' before leaving the factory
To make sure there aren’t any nasty interior leaks, each Chiron is drenched for 30 minutes, in a test that’s supposed to simulate the intensity of a monsoon. So in other words, if it passes that test, it should be fine with a drizzly day in Surrey.
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
Just 20 people making a car
For 6 months
Imagine how painful it must be for them to see it on the news when someone crashes it
20 people who ASSEMBLE the car. There are hundreds more who actually make the car.
Eh, I bet they get paid pretty good for the quality they preform. At the end of the day they are slapping parts together
The best part is those ‘fingers’ in the floor that go up and down as the marriage takes place, SO SATISFYING
The most powerful dyno in the world? idk bout that
Steve Morris and Tom Nelson dyno engines with much more power..
The SRT Demon Will Be Lighter Than The Chiron’s Engine
The rain-test seems a little unnecessary if you consider that most of the cars hardly see a road at all (even less so one in rainy weather) but are kept in collections instead.
How do they need the most powerful dyno in the world for just 1500 hp? There are dragsters that are tested that have double that.
First of all, I hope I don’t offend people by this comment, but I’m not sorry if I do. Don’t trash talk me, I respect your opinions and don’t be rude to me.
I absolutely hate Bugatti. The cars are way to expensive. Get one if you like, i’ll laugh at you though.
I’m not sorry if I offended you, because if that comment offends you, then buddy, good luck in the real world. The real world chew you up and spits you out.
So aggressive about it, jeez ! Haha for my money, i would always look past the bugatti. Great engineering feature but so not interesting, so not passionate, just a simple car going fast.