Bugatti’s future in the hands of Rimac gradually begins to reveal its secrets. The merger between Rimac and Bugatti promises to give us great surprises in the future, however, what nobody expected is what we have known today. The successor to the Bugatti Chiron will no longer be able to use the W16 engine, but it will have a unique gasoline engine at its height. And although the logical thing is that this engine would have been designed by the Volkswagen group, nothing could be further from reality, because It will be Rimac who gives life to Bugatti’s new and stratospheric heat engine.
Rimac, the Croatian manufacturer that has become a reference in the electric car industry, has assumed an extremely ambitious role by taking the reins of Bugatti. The objective of its CEO, Mate Rimac, is to consolidate Bugatti at a time when the brand is forced to electrify itself and grow in sales to maintain the profitability achieved in its current stage. Not easy.
And although with the arrival of Rimac everything indicated that the successor to the Chiron would already be fully electric, the reality will be very different. With the launch of the Bugatti Mistral, the French firm will say goodbye to the huge 8.0 W16 Quad-Turbo engine foreverthus closing a chapter of two decades that has allowed Bugatti to position itself one step above manufacturers such as Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, Aston Martin, etc.
But not, The successor to the Bugatti Chiron will not be an electric car. The founder of Rimac recently declared to auto express that upon arrival, the manufacture of an SUV was ruled out and the total commitment to electrification. The Bugatti customer does not require electrification in their cars, and although this will come at some point, the first step in this direction will be made through a plug-in hybrid system. And here Rimac already has significant experience gained after having collaborated in the development of hybrid powertrains used by the Koenigsegg Regera and Aston Martin Valkyrie.
However, the great surprise revealed by Rimac is that Bugatti’s new hybrid scheme will not use an engine developed by the Volkswagen group, but it will be a unique and completely new engine designed by them, by Rimac. Until now Rimac had never talked about the development of a heat engine, however Mate Rimac has confirmed that two years before the creation of Bugatti Rimac, the development of this gasoline engine begannow receiving the green light for its production in order to become the new Bugatti engine.
It will be in 2023 when we discover all the details of the new Bugatti hybrid hypercar, being impatient to know how Rimac will manage to give life to its own engine capable of replacing the already legendary W16. And if to all this we add that, in addition, Rimac has promised that this new Bugatti will have nothing in common with the Chiron or the Rimac Refrigerator, without a doubt the Croatian manufacturer has raised expectations through the roof.