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BUGATTI CHIRON SPORT MEETS CHIRON PUR SPORT: THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING

- JONNY LIEBERMAN

2021 Bugatti Chiron Sport • 2021 Bugatti Chiron Pur Sport

Some emails are better than others. Case in point: When Bugatti PR asks if you’d like to compare and contrast the Chiron Sport against the new Chiron Pur Sport (pronounced “pure sport”), well, that’s a pretty good email. Yes, I spent a day driving two cars that between them have 3,000 horsepower, 32 cylinders, eight turbochargers, 128 valves, and 20 radiators. Together, they cost north of $7.7 million. That’s $3,757,150 for the blue exposed-carbon-fiber Chiron Sport and $3,959,000 for the Jet Grey Pur Sport. I’ll get to the differences between them, but first a little story about the first time I drove a Bugatti.

In 2010, Bugatti unveiled the Veyron Super Sport at the annual Pebble Beach hootenanny. The ultimate Veyron was fresh off its (then) record-setting top-speed assault, where Pierre-Henri Raphanel piloted the 1,200-hp mega-thing to a Guinness-certified top speed of 268 mph. I was a Bentley guest at Pebble, and at dinner I sat across from Franz-Josef Paefgen, who at the time was CEO of both Bentley and Bugatti. I peppered him with questions about Veyron development; he was brought in to “fix” the car halfway through its evolution from fever dream of Volkswagen Group übermensch Ferdinand Piëch to its eventual 1,001-PS (987 SAE hp) reality.

There were nine issues, Paefgen explained, that held up Veyron production. Around the meal’s third course, our conversation turned to the Super Sport. “Dr. Paefgen, isn’t 268 mph getting silly?” I’ll never forget his response.