25 August 2022
Mate Rimac, CEO of Bugatti Rimac, said, ‘For the final road-going appearance of Bugatti’s legendary W-16 engine, we knew we had to create a roadster.’
At the 2022 Monterey Car Week, Bugatti introduced the coda for their outstanding W16 engine, the Bugatti Mistral, an open-top version of the carbon-fibre monocoque Chiron and not just a speedster version; this will be the fastest production roadster ever built.
The open-top supercar takes inspiration from the classic 1934 Bugatti Type 57 Grand Raid, a roadster made for long rallies featuring a v-shaped windscreen and aerodynamic contours inspired by aircraft features.
Despite being the first Bugatti roadster in a decade, Rimac pointed out, ‘Well over 40 per cent of all Bugatti vehicles ever created have been open-top in design, establishing a long lineage of performance icons that—to this day—are revered the world over.’
As usual with Bugatti, it will be exclusive with a limited production run of 99 and is said to deliver 1,578 bhp and a price tag of £4.2million.
As to the Northwesterly, the Mistral is a mighty wind that blows from southern France into the Gulf of Lion in the northern Mediterranean and is also the name of a 1960s, beautiful two-seat Maserati GT. Mistral’s name was up for grabs; for whatever reason, Maserati didn’t collar it, so Bugatti ‘grabbed’ it before Maserati could.
