Bugatti brings its Vision Gran Turismo race-car into the real world.
The French car manufacturer unveiled its super-sports car designed exclusively for the Gran Turismo Playstation video game franchise to thank its millions of fans worldwide for their loyalty and enthusiasm.
Inspired by the Bugatti Type 57 Tank’s victories in Le Mans in 1937 and 1939, the Vision Gran Turismo pays homage to the old racer by sporting the traditional blue two-tone finish. It’s intriguing to see how Bugatti always integrates its rich history in pioneering or current designs, always keeping an eye on future products. In fact, the Vision Gran Turismo undoubtedly carries design cues that will appear in Bugatti’s next hypercar saga, as Wolfgang Dürheimer – President of Bugatti Automobiles S.A.S. – puts it:
“Bugatti Vision Gran Turismo is the first stage on a new journey that Bugatti is embarking on following the successful completion of its Veyron chapter, and which will culminate in the unveiling of the next Bugatti super sports car in the not too distant future. This project showcases Bugatti’s new design language, which we have developed to celebrate this new chapter in our company history.”
Designed to be the ultimate racer, the automobile has a plethora of race-inspired ideas, created to celebrate Bugatti’s racing tradition and the car’s muse – Le Mans, Circuit de la Sarthe. Moreover, the collaboration between Polyphony Digital and the French car maker will allow the fans to have access to Bugatti’s top notch ideas first handed.
As it will never race in the real world, its design is far more extreme and performance-oriented than that of a normal, contained Bugatti. Still, that didn’t stop the design team to follow the marque’s core values, such as “Art, Forme, Technique”. Besides, every component was created with a real performance function in mind, being developed together with Bugatti designers on cutting-edge racing technology and aerodynamic analysis.
“Bugatti’s design DNA has reached a new stage in its evolution. Given the nature of the project, our concept car for Vision Gran Turismo is overstated and pushes performance to the limits, but its progressive design language will clearly show the direction that Bugatti’s design will take in the coming years”, said Achim Anscheidt, head of the Bugatti design team.
Even the car’s technical features, like its design, were realistically developed, especially as the automobile is based on the Bugatti development team’s latest simulations models of driving dynamics and aerodynamics.
In fact, the entire team worked meticulously on the project for six months, with racing experts from Volkswagen Group offering vital input in order to ensure that every detail of the virtual race car is authentic.
So, what can it do? Well, Bugatti engineers have calculated that the Vision Gran Turismo can drive at over 400 kph (250 mph) on four sections of the virtual Circuit de la Sarthe. To attain that performance objective, the concept is driven by the same, almighty W16 engine, which delivers the power to all four wheels. Unfortunately, Bugatti didn’t communicate an exact number, but it did mention “incredible power”.
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