Sharper handling for Bugatti Chiron Pur Sport

500km/h Bugatti Chrion hypercar gets tweaked chassis and gearbox.

You might think that the Bugatti Chiron was already fast enough and expensive enough, but you'd be wrong. Into the cyberspace replacement for the 2020 Geneva Motor Show, the Franco-German hypercar brand is launching this, the Chiron Pur Sport. This is, apparently, the 'pure and undiluted' Bugatti experience (which must be news to those that already spent several million on a boggo Chiron...).

A more driver-focused version of the Chiron

Bugatti says that this Pur Sport version of the Chiron follows in the footsteps of the classic Type 13 and Type 35 cars, in that it's effectively a racing car for the road. It stands, says Bugatti, in contrast to the Chiron Sport 300+ (the one that reached past 300mph, or almost 500km/h, last year) in that it's more agile, and more focused on driver enjoyment than on top speed.

"We spoke to customers and realised they wanted a vehicle that is geared even more towards agility and dynamic cornering. A hypersports car that yearns for country roads with as many bends as possible. An unadulterated, uncompromising driving machine. Consequently, the vehicle is called Chiron Pur Sport", explains Stephan Winkelmann, President of Bugatti. "By cutting the weight by 50kg while simultaneously boosting the downforce and configuring an uncompromising, sporty chassis as well as suspension setup, the Chiron Pur Sport boasts incredible grip, sensational acceleration and extraordinarily accurate handling. It's the most uncompromising yet agile Bugatti of recent times."

Lighter wheels, special tyres

The wheels are new too, and have aero blades which extract high-pressure air from behind the wheel and send it tumbling down the sides of the car. Even the covers on the wheel nuts have been aero-optimised, and the lightweight wheels themselves trim another 16kg from the Chiron's mass. "All of the modifications make the Pur Sport's handling more accurate, direct and predictable. Lower unsprung masses result in improved grip because the wheel maintains contact with the road surface more easily. Anyone behind the wheel will immediately feel its lightweight character through bends", Jachin Schwalbe, Head of Bugatti Chassis Development, adds. An accomplished interpretation of "form follows performance."

The tyres are custom made by Michelin for the car: Bugatti Sport Cup 2 R tyre in 285/30 R20 dimensions at the front and 355/25 R21 at the rear, and they're said to improve lateral grip performance by ten per cent.

Reworked suspension and gearbox

While the Pur Sport's suspension geometry is basically the same, Bugatti has made it some 65 per cent stiffer at the front, and 33 per cent stiffer at the rear, and also recalibrated the responses of the adaptive damping system. There are also new carbon-fibre anti-roll bars, and modified camber valves. This setup makes the Chiron Pur Sport steer more directly and accurately through bends and maintains the grip levels for a very long time - even at high speeds.

In conjunction with 19kg of weight reduction of the unsprung masses the Pur Sport almost glides across roads", Jachin Schwalbe explains. "These 19 kilogrammes fully contribute towards the performance. Less weight results in more grip and tangibly more comfort, as adaptive dampers are forced to deal with lower masses to thus be able to maintain the wheels' contact with the road surface more easily." Even the connections between the suspension and the bodywork are stiffer- by 130 per cent at the front and by 77 per cent at the rear.

The Chiron Pur Sport also has an extra driving mode, added to the standard EB, Motorway, Handling and Sport modes. It gets a Sport + mode, which delays the onset of traction control, but it's designed more for trackdays than road driving. Assuming Chiron owners ever get involved in anything so common as a trackday.

The transmission has also been altered at little, with closer ratios that bring the top speed down to around 350km/h. "We were forced to reduce the speed as a result of the vastly increased downforce, generated by the new rear spoiler" Schwalbe explains. "80 per cent of the transmission has been revised while the entire gear set including four shafts and seven forward gears has been adapted to the new conditions. We reconfigured each gear and calibrated new ratios despite this iconic engine boasting an abundance of power. The gears are closer together now to enable shorter gear jumps and also benefit performance. Most of all when coming out of corners the Chiron Pur Sport accelerates even more aggressively in conjunction with the added grip as well as the more direct chassis and suspension."

Just 60 Chiron Pur Sports will be built, and each will set you back a whopping €3 million. Before taxes. "With the Chiron Pur Sport we are showcasing an outstanding vehicle that makes your heart race shortly after having started the engine to push the limits of driving physics even further to the limit than any vehicle ever has done before. This means we have come full circle, back to the good, old Bugatti tradition" said Stephan Winkelmann.

Published on: March 4, 2020