V16 Bugatti Tourbillon preview special from inside the commissioning suite at the Bugatti factory.

Well welcome to a new Harry's Garage video and we're not in a garage, we're at Bugatti, believe it or not. This is Molsheim, this is the headquarters of Bugatti and I've come here because ever since they announced the new tourbillon, the Chiron replacement, the engineering has just blown my mind on it and hiding in there is a tourbillon and there is a rolling chassis so we can see all the details. I've just been given a tour round and it's one of those cars where the engineering is off the scale, it's like nothing else. Here we all were expecting potentially the Chiron with Matti Rimac taking over to go move to electric but no, they've done something completely different. Now this space in here, this is for where customers, when they come, they've ordered the car, they've put their mind to it, they've paid a deposit, oh my god I'm going to create my own Bugatti. This is where they come and this is where with the designers they work out how their tourbillon or Chiron or Veyron is going to look. I last came here, I was looking through some old Evo magazines, that was the last time I was here and that was when the Colibier was launched. This was going to be a four-door Bugatti. They couldn't work out what to replace the Veyron with, there was talk of doing this, this ultra limousine, it's 220 mile an hour, W16 powered front engine limousine, it didn't happen but that I think was, when was the date of that one, yeah December 2009. I've also been here when we did that group test, that's my Zonda and we did this group test with a Bugatti Veyron, we brought it back from Le Mans and brought it here but today, tourbillon, here it is and there is such magic I think with this car because it's actually the same sort of size as a Chiron but the tech is so different and it is a hybrid supercar as you've probably read, I think I can call this a hypercar but it's got a V16 engine in it and that alone produces near on 1000 horsepower and then there's 800 horsepower from electric motors, two at the front, one at the back and it's streamlined and it's 400 kilometre plus top speed but once you strip away the detail underneath, I'm going to show you on this book just what they've done, the lengths they've gone to to create this car and the main focus, I'm going to have to take a little crib sheet with me at times, the main focus of it was aero, how do we make it lighter being a hybrid car, Chiron and Veyron, so much to package in there, that huge W16 engine was enormous, it took incredible amounts of cooling and it ended up quite heavy, it was always around the two tonne mark, they are hoping even though this has quite a substantial battery on it, I think it's 27 kilowatt hour battery, around 200 kilos of that and around in total 300 kilos with the front two electric motors, inverter and a rear electric motor, there's 300 kilos there, they're going to try and get this car under two tonnes and lighter than the Chiron, that's a mammoth engineering task, how are they going to do it, well use of carbon fibre, as you can see the whole structure it's carbon fibre and then hiding here is this Cosworth designed and built V16 engine, talking to them they wanted to have that signature of 16 cylinders, the initial thought was they're going to do a normally aspirated version of the W16 but it just didn't work and then after a meeting or few at Cosworth, they thought about V8, V12 but decided that the V16 was a signature of Bugatti, they didn't want to lose, Cosworth came up with this and it is an enormous engine, one of the other thing that got me about this car, it revs to 9000 rpm but it's 8.3 litres, it was huge in today's world and then that gearbox at the back, dual clutch gearbox as you'd expect, there is the electric motor sitting there and I love this backpack of the gearbox, you can see here it reminds me of single seaters and things, you're going to unbolt it and put different ratios in it and put it all together again, I'm sure it's not that simple but that is a lovely design detail as well and the engine isn't sort of straight in the car like this, if you look it's actually angled like this to come up the rear because the other big thing they've done with this car is create a diffuser at the back and this is a full-on working diffuser, monstrous and by making the exhaust, if you peer in this window here, you can see the bunch of bananas coming off the V16, that allows the diffuser to start right at the bulkhead here, this great big length of diffuser and it's at 11 degrees which is the maximum angle before you get stall and that creates a huge amount of downforce, not only that, it means the crash structure, the diffuser acts as the crash structure, the pendulum test in the US can hit that, doesn't deform, the lights remain in operation. Now the reason I'm quite excited about this bit, I'm very lucky to have driven quite a number of Veyron and Chiron and one of my disappointments is when you actually see it in sort of handling mode it has the ugliest silencer you've ever seen, that's all here, not so on this new terminal, this is production, this beautiful titanium look and I think it's fantastic that now this is a signature engine that's utterly beautiful to look at. Other things to note on this car, well you'll see on the show car there's dihedral doors, so these open up, they're electrically powered as it turns out, rather than on a strut they did that because apparently it's more uniform in the speed it comes up, depending on which climate you're under, that is the level of detail the engineering boys look at and the seat is actually fixed and the pedal box and things move. The other thing you see on this rolling chassis, there are the batteries, so along there and then they're behind this structure here, so in a T is where they mount the batteries, which is just right for weight distribution and keeping a super low centre of gravity. They've managed, it's about 30 mil lower than a Chiron which takes a bit of doing, but also the windscreen is 30 mil lower as well. Come around here, one of my favourite details on this car, this upper wishbone, look at the form of it, this is AI intelligence looking at what a top wishbone needs to do and then designing it in a way that it has the absolute minimal mass to take the forces that are involved for a wishbone to perform as it should and you end up with a skeleton sort of form, beautiful, could be almost be art, but that is AI intelligence at work redesigning engineering to make it as in its most light form. You can see here the two electric motors at the front, there's a lovely script and Bugatti written on this inverter thing here, steering rack up there, looks like it's left-hand drive only, I asked if they're going to do right-hand drive, it's not spoken about at the moment, but beautiful engineering, carbon all the way through right to the Bugatti signature there and this space down here, they've determined this is a GT car and there will be a hand luggage that is allowed for with that space there. Look dead ahead here, what they've actually tried to do is shrink the passenger compartment without you noticing when you're inside and that is the the big change engineering, well there's so many big changes the engineering, but previously Veyron and Chiron had the engine there and the gearbox was in front of it just like my Countach and the gearbox you always hear it sort of operated in between you and the passenger in that transmission tunnel, that because it's such a gearbox and how much forces it had to be, it had to be a reasonably big gearbox meant that the two seats were spread out, that meant it had a wider windscreen and it sort of came out to here because just the width of the cockpit, by putting the gearbox at the rear of the engine having clear structure in between and a very tightly packaged battery which you can see on there as a T, it goes down the centre of the car and then across behind you is in a T-shape is where the battery's imagined there, this has shrunk down so the windscreen isn't as wide and that's all to do with a frontal area for that top speed performance. The other lovely detail you see the central wiper, there's there's always been a spine sort of running up Bugatti in their design language, it all came from the 57S Atlantic, that coupe that had that spine out, it's something that the modern Bugatti use as a design signature, hence the central wiper and I just asked whether it sort of has to hint the look of that wonderful wiper that Mercedes had that used to reach out into the corners and he admitted to me yes that is the hope that this wiper will also replicate that wonderful wiper of Mercedes from the 90s that did the corners as well as the top of the screen and shrunk down, love that. Also there's aero going on, there's a lot of aero with this car that's going to suck in air there to bring it out here to get rid of a sort of low pressure point here and then this, this is actually designed to shake the air as it comes up here to create a sort of high force air that's then going to fire it into that take there and that is where the engine breathes from, there's a radiator down there but they want to create a high pressure point here so the air is sucked in the engine to almost give the engine a supercharged effect so the speed builds so does the horsepower from the engine from that forced air into there all to do with this line here and this air this cut out here and I think it's given them nightmares because this is one piece of carbon fiber all of this and trying to create this form have the lights there suspended almost with air rushing underneath and beside it and firing out there just wonderful design detail and have a look at that spine look at that for an edge just to manage that air into there this is such a signature of Chiron again and Tourbillon such a confident line I think with this we'll open the doors in a moment and have a look at the interior because that's extremely special but there's there's muscle to this car and the stance is slightly different I always thought Veyron in particular was slightly dumpy it was almost they packaged it into a package that wasn't quite made for the right size not Chiron did help on that side I think it was how it exposed the engine there's a more pronounced spine and how the engine was exposed was better but this just takes it to another level so the tire size isn't enormous it's 20 inch at the front the Michelin Cup 2 Rs is the standard tire and 21 inch at the back 3 4 5 30 you see there so the same size of the Countach in width terms slightly bigger in diameter there is a spoiler here but it's not nearly as active as it was on the Chiron and the Veyron before it this is used as an air brake as those did as well but in handling mode it doesn't need it because it's generating so much from this huge diffuser and I just love how it's open look how much you can see the rear wheel is I can't think of another car like it with that much error going on there's hot air being fired out of here which is from the engine there's sort of turbulence coming off here and they're using this as a the exhaust outlets as sort of a blown diffuser from F1 world so you have this clean air coming here forcing this turbulent air here and then it matches and the exhaust gases actually help the airflow and it's all to reduce drag to get that top speed higher great signature lights even the Bugatti is lit up on this example which they're hoping still to have in production it won't be for Germany unfortunately but other markets should get it here you see the V16 these are the air mass monitors here the the throttles if you like that's coming through there's obviously air cleaner be here that's how it breathes in and then you can see actually see on the model over there engine be dry sump to get it as low as possible in the chassis and then the electric motor you can't see all that the gearbox on there is hidden all you see is those intake of the engine there but again fully exposed it they get they think it's a signature of modern Bugatti and they've managed they know how to manage a fully exposed engine that rain is non-issue for this car but I've almost left the best bit to last and that's the interior ah where where do you start on this no screens at all everything has a purpose there are also adjustments of ventilation that sort of thing and but it's this dash here that is off the scale this is genuine genuine mechanical layout dash layout and up here we have speed here we have power and you have two needles in there I'm going to put in a graphic that shows this all working one shows electric power one shows engine power and then here we've got like it's battery level fuel level that sort of things but it's all mechanical it's made by a watchmaker in Switzerland and if I turn the wheel it stays static as you drive I think it's just magic you've got the modes here you have the paddle gear changes on the wheel here just glorious and I think it's exceptional that Bugatti have gone down this route in this day and age of giant screens how do they do an interior I'll take my hat off to Matteo Rimac because he's been the centre of this he says these cars are going to last forever we need something that will be celebrated in 50 years 100 years they're they're going to last for eternity that's why they've gone back to mechanical gauges rather than dominating with a screen there are some functions you do need have a screen and there is actually a pop-up screen that comes out of here if needed so you'll have car play or something like that on it but it will disappear as soon as you're not using it or don't want to you also see some switches in the door up in the roof up here as well but just glorious how they've done that other things to note in here is this part of the seat is fixed pedals will come towards you the wheel is fully adjustable and backrest will move as well and that is controlled you can't see it on really but on the door control there that is how you get your seating position but I just can't help but turn that steering wheel and I just think that is fantastic like no other car I know and Bugatti leading what gets me about this company is it's a group of very passionate engineers you might say it was irrelevance this car is so expensive if you want to know it's 3.2 million plus UK taxes so 20 you're not going to get much change from four million pounds they're 250 going to be created but it's that pinnacle where else have you seen wishbones design like that where else have you seen a normally aspirated v6 engine a thousand horsepower linked that hydro linked to that electric motor where else have you seen an interior like that dihedral doors this is the pinnacle of automotive you have Gordon Murray doing one thing very sporting super lightweight but this is more GT this is more pushing the boundaries that top speed you can imagine how much testing goes into this car and I think it's just a celebration of automotive engineering art at its finest here it is with the lights on so there you go there's a deep dive into the Bugatti Tourbillon this new supercar that will be hitting the roads in about to 2026 so we're two years away from driving this car but isn't it great to see it like this up close and I thank Bugatti very much for the invite to be able to see it hope you enjoyed this video if you did well keep watching keep subscribing more videos coming along very soon