Bugatti just sold its latest all-gas car for $10.7 million, setting a world auction record for a new car

PARIS — Bugatti sold its latest purely gas-powered supercar at an auction in Paris on Wednesday for more than $10 million, setting a world auction record for a new car.

Originally a special development model that was never meant to be sold, the unique Bugatti Chiron Profilée sold at RM Paris collector car auction for a bid of $9.5 million. With fees paid to the auction house, the final sale price was approximately $10.7 million.

The price was well above the $4.5–6 million that RM Sotheby’s had estimated the car was worth. The eight-figure price dwarfs previous new-car auctions, according to Hagerty, a company that tracks the collector car market. (But, privately, a trio of new bespoke, highly customized Rolls Royces are selling in 2021 at around $25 million each.)

Bidding for this sparkling blue supercar has been so high because it’s unique and, in cases like this, collectors “bid knowing they won’t get a second chance,” said John Wiley, head of evaluation and analysis at Hagerty.

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Accelerating from zero to 100 kilometers per hour, or 62 miles per hour, in just 2.3 seconds, the Profilee is the fastest-accelerating Chiron model, according to Bugatti. It is capable of reaching 200 km/h, or 124 mph, in 5.5 seconds. Capable of reaching 236mph, it also has a higher top speed than the Pur Sport, but still not as high as some other Bugatti models which can, at least in theory, reach 300mph. .

The French ultra-luxury carmaker previously indicated that the W16 Mistral convertible, unveiled last August, would be its latest gasoline-powered model. Only 99 of these cars will be made at a cost of at least $5 million each. Mate Rimac, managing director of Bugatti Rimac, Bugatti’s parent company, said Bugatti’s next high-performance model will be a plug-in hybrid with a different type of gasoline engine.

It turned out that Bugatti had another purely gas-powered car for sale – and really only one. But this Bugatti was not originally intended for sale at all.

The Bugatti Chiron Profilée was developed, from the end of 2020, as one of the many versions of the Chiron, Bugatti’s main model. Bugatti always said that only 500 Chirons would be made. A few variants were included in this 500, such as the Chiron Sport, Chiron Pur Sport and Chiron Super Sport, each with varying degrees of top speed, acceleration and cornering aggressiveness. (Bugatti also made a few other models, such as the Mistral and Divo, which share engineering with the Chiron but are considered separate models.)

While the Chiron, with its turbocharged 16-cylinder engine capable of producing almost 1,600 horsepower, offered stunning performance, the Pur Sport offered more aggressive steering and suspension and even more lively acceleration. But some customers were interested in something that was a mix of the two, offering the performance of the Pur Sport but with a softer style.

As a result, Bugatti engineers and designers began work on a new Chiron variant with the performance capabilities of a Pur Sport but with a sleeker, more streamlined design. The Profiled has a larger grille and wider front air intakes than the base Chiron to take in more air to cool the big engine. The transmission has also been revised for shorter gear ratios to provide quicker acceleration and the engine is allowed to run at higher speeds.

The Profiled is the fastest accelerating Chiron model, according to Bugatti. It is capable of going from zero to 100 kilometers per hour, or 62 miles per hour, in just 2.3 seconds and from 200 km/h, or 124 mph, in 5.5 seconds. Capable of reaching 236mph, it also has a higher top speed than the Pur Sport, but still not as high as some other Bugatti models which can, at least in theory, reach 300mph. .

The car’s name, Contoured, comes from a sleek teardrop-shaped body type used on some famous Bugatti cars of the 1930s.

At some point, executives realized that all 500 Chiron models would have already been ordered before the Profiled could be offered to customers. Nevertheless, they decided to complete this car, on which the engineers of the development model were working. The buyer, whom the auction company has not identified, will take delivery of the car directly from Bugatti.

Although this is the last car sold with the W16 petrol engine, it will not be the last delivered to a customer. Bugatti, which builds about 80 cars a year, still has a paid backlog through 2025, a company representative said.

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