W 16 - ONE LAST BLAST

Bugatti's legendary 8.0-litre quad turbo W16 gets one last hurrah... under the skin of a lightweight track only multimillion pound hypercar. Who said anything about going quietly?

- OLLIE MARRIAGE

The king of engines whoomphs into life.

Definitely whoomphs. It doesn't snarl or scream, it doesn't pepper the air with fake pops, there's just a sense of a lot of air being drawn in, and then suddenly combusted deep inside. Whoomph.

This is not a new noise. It's the sound Bugatti's W16 has always made and there's nothing else like it because no one else has ever had a W16. The king of engines doesn't need to be rowdy. It communicates in another way. It's the only engine I've come across that uses the ground underneath it as a resonating surface, sending vibrations far and wide, like how a croc ripples its back in the water. You'd probably read it as a warning not to mess, and that wouldn’t be a bad interpretation. Even now it’s unsilenced and decatalysed, it’s not so much noise that it emits as presence.

The bodywork? That makes a tad more fuss. From the sinewy snout along the raked profile to the X-wing rear end, it exudes menace. A wheeled knuckle duster, the king of engines dressed as a street fighter.

The Bolide is the most extreme Bugatti there’s ever been. It’s more powerful than any racing car, has to shed more energy in the course of a lap, delivers 2,900kg of downforce, 2.5g of cornering force, explosive acceleration force - in short it’s one of the most forceful cars there’s ever been. And it is the last place a W16 engine will ever call home. Now 20 years old, we'll miss it when it’s gone. Other hypercar engines rev higher, shriek louder. One or two produce more power, several are more power dense, all are smaller, lighter. But just as you don’t doubt the lion's claim to be king, nor do you question the W16’s. All others live in its shadow.