The Bugatti Vision GT

The Bugatti Vision GT
Bugatti Vision Gran Turismo
The Bugatti Vision GT
Bugatti Vision Gran Turismo

Up until recently the most expensive hypercar, from the house of the most expensive hypercars came as thoroughbred as they could possibly come. Called the Vision Gran Turismo, it is inspired from the 1937 and 39 Le Mans winning car Bugatti Type 57 Tank. The Vision GT is a two door concept hypercar that represents the company’s racing tradition and history of dominance on the tracks in the early nineteen hundreds.

Styling

Designed for the sole purpose of track domination, it is a fusion of Bugatti’s signature styling cues, an impressive use of aerodynamics, and precision race tech. Designers Anscheidt, Selipanov, Salome and Frank have worked to draw from the motifs of a road car and an LMP1 prototype. Each prominent feature of the car’s styling serves an important purpose. The horseshoe grille also works as a support system for the front splitter. The rear wing controls pneumatic braking system and the drag reduction program.

The interiors are completely track spec. With only one seat in the cockpit, the car accomodates just the driver – all others can watch in awe. The shapes and surfaces on the interior mimic that of the exterior, creating a seamless flow of visual connect. The exterior features true blue bugatti curves – voluptuous and streamlined at the same time, positive and negative surfaces wrapped together for perfect visual balance. The asymmetry on either side is symmetric in every angle, every merging line and every smoothly transitioning surface. The body is mostly carbon fibre and the rear end is straight out of fighter plane designer’s sketchbook. The fin at the centre comes from the Type 57 SC Atlantic – which is also among the rarest most desirable cars in the world.

Performance

It is driven by an 8.0 litre W block motor with sixteen cylinders, four valves for each cylinder, and four turbochargers – all together producing sixteen hundred and fifty horse power and fifteen hundred and eighty Nm of torque which is evenly delivered to all four wheels. It brags of a four hundred and forty seven kilometre per hour top speed though only virtually as tested on the digital racing game’s LeMans track. Michelin hyper sport racing tyres provide for the road grip and traction that a car like the GT would demand.

The car was originally developed as a concept for the racing game Gran Tourismo Sport and wasn’t officially revealed until 2015 at the Frankfurt Motor Show and is a one off piece. Priced above five million US dollars, the car was first owned by Prince Badr Bin Saud of Saudi Arabia, who had bought it off the shelf from Bugatti.

Exclusivity of Ownership

It was however recently acquired by American businessman and owner of the apparel retail “Tilly’s” for approximately US $ 5.16 million. The new owner Hezy Shaked is a supercar enthusiast who recently also acquired the Lamborghini Centenario Roadster, a McLaren P1, the first Bugatti Chiron, and a Ferrari Laferrari. Based out of Los Angeles he seems to have a particular love for the German owned French brand since he also owns a Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse. The very car that’s also known to have overwhelmed many hearts at the 2105 Idaho Sun Valley drive by clocking a lightning fast two hundred and thirty five point seven miles (nearly three hundred and eighty kilometres) an hour.

Thousand dollar nitty gritties

The five million dollar car will have you pay a sum of twenty thousand dollars for a single routine service including oil drain and replacement, lube check, wash and tyre pressure check – an amount that can happily buy you any entry level sports car brand new and with luck, insurance included.

The car comes with a complete set of owner’s manuals, four remote controlled keys, a centre-lock wheel-nut remover, a set of jumper cables, keys for suspension adjustment, keys for spoiler adjustment and light control, an antenna piece all neatly packaged in a crate.

Each tyre on the Vision GT is priced at a little over twenty three thousand dollars and they only come in a set of four for the humble price, of a Porsche.

It recently featured on YouTube celebrity Alex Hirschi’s channel – after her screen name Supercar Blondie, in an exclusive episode.

It isn’t the only excessively extravagantly priced car in the world with the whole clutter of Lykan’s, Rolls Royce’s, Lamborghinis and Koeniggseggs, and recently, the successor to Chiron – the six million dollar Bugatti Divo, which is for another time perhaps, no. Even with the whole world engine being considered for a redesign on the lines of sustainability, there will always be such eccentric machines and people who buy them somewhere, but its cars like these that make one wonder, how long it would be before their price and exclusivity bridge the gap between them and yachts and jets.