Bugatti signs off W16 with Chiron special a month before successor revealed

Production of the Bugatti Chiron has come to an end, a month before its successor is due to be revealed. Finishing its eight-year lineage with the Super Sport L’Ultime, the special edition, limited to just 500 handbuilt examples, pairs a bespoke exterior paint with commemorative badging. Related articles This final model also marks the end of the brand's famed W16 powerplant, which is set to be replaced in the Chiron's successor by a 1000bhp hybrid system that's based around a naturally aspirated V16. The company recently revealed the shape and layout of that engine – as well as its screaming soundtrack (below) – but Bugatti-Rimac CEO Mate Rimac has now given new details in an interview at the Financial Times Future of the Car conference in London. While keeping most cards close to his chest, he revealed that the colossal engine will go without forced induction, unlike its W16 predecessor, which inhaled through four turbochargers.  The engine itself, he added, will measure a whopping one-metre long in its own right – 400mm longer than the four-bank unit from the Chiron.  Despite that, though (and the integration of a substantial electric drivetrain element), the car will be a similar shape to its predecessor, Rimac suggested. He said: "The exterior is an evolution. You can still see the very distinct Bugatti design." Certainly, spy shots circulating the internet in recent weeks indicate that it will have a familiar silhouette, but be somewhat lower and sleeker than the Chiron it replaces. Mate Rimac, despite being best known for his pioneering work creating electric hypercars and supplying battery tech to a number of global car manufacturers, said he was a driving force behind bringing the V16 to fruition.  Before his firm took over Bugatti from the Volkswagen Group, he said: "The business plan was to make an electric coupé-SUV type of thing."