INSIDESTORY Tackling the motoring issues that matter
Sean Carson
sean_carson@autovia.co.uk
A DAY in the life of a multi-millionaire is something many of us would like to experience, I’m sure. We’ve all dreamed of that Euromillions lottery win and how we might spend it, and the purchase of an ultra-exclusive hypercar probably makes that shortlist for many people. Could I interest you in a Bugatti Chiron Super Sport, sir, madam? Well, even if I could grab your attention, you wouldn’t be able to buy one, because they’re all sold. But despite a global pandemic, the French brand’s business is booming. It’s a rarefied world that Bugatti owners live in, and Auto Express got to experience what it’s like for a day when it comes to specifying one of these £3.2million monsters. “The average Bugatti customer owns more than 50 cars,” the company’s test driver Andy Wallace tells us, and we suspect they’re not Vauxhall Corsas or Volkswagen Polos. But the well heeled clients that descend on Bugatti’s Molsheim factory, on the site of Chateau Saint Jacques – the large country house company founder Ettore Bugatti used to entertain clients just inside the French border, 15 miles west of Strasbourg – come to indulge their passion for a kind of vehicle they can’t get elsewhere, something Bugatti prides itself on. That’s exactly what we’re here to do, dive inside the wonderful world of Bugatti, before we head out onto the road to sample exactly what this incredible machine can achieve. Talking to Jascha Straub, the Molsheim Atelier’s design and sales representative, the price tag is often immaterial. The Super Sport starts from around £3.2million basic – a brilliantly incongruous term for such a machine – including UK taxes, and we’re told that most buyers spend between £300,000 and £400,000 on options alone, although Bugatti doesn’t outline individual option costs. But there are some brilliantly individual requests that the factory has to contend with, according to Jascha, and it’s his job to advise customers on the right way to go. He’s “the personal link between the customer and the bespoke creative journey, intrinsically aware of every last detail offered by Bugatti and shaping the ultimate buying experience with the French luxury brand”. So,
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ALL GONE Bugatti is not taking any more orders for the Chiron after hitting its production run of 500 cars. This includes the Super Sport version snake skin? Alligator leather? “We’ve had all of these requests,” he tells me. “But we had to say no to this. Maybe a few years ago we would have done it, but for example, our collaborations with Hermes, they have their own leather, but the leather for their bags is not automotive grade, it’s not made to be under 100 degrees, so we have certain requirements for our materials, which makes it complicated. “We want to achieve the highest quality – this is what Bugatti stands for,” Jascha explains. Some things aren’t possible due to legislation and factors you might not immediately imagine, such as UV light damaging materials after a life spent in the sun. Jascha says that these outlandish requests “happen quite often actually because people ask for different things on the steering wheel or inner dashboard, but we’re not allowed to touch this because of the airbags and the homologation of the car. If you changed something here, you’d have to crash test the car again and this is superexpensive. No customer wants to pay this. “Sometimes customers request things that are unusual, such as a really bright colour for the dash. They have to sign a safety waiver that says the reflection in the windscreen might make it not so easy to see out and that Bugatti isn’t responsible for an accident arising from this issue. “Every customer wants to go crazy. Recently, though, every car has been individualised, but in terms of materials the customers are more conventional now. Maybe they learned from the past that some things don’t make sense. And what we offer in terms of materials – Alcantara, carbon fibre, real aluminium – is something special.” We keep things more reserved as we kick off our configuration journey, basing our Auto Express Chiron on a subtle French theme as we follow the same path Bugatti
LUXUR We discover what it’s like to
