Most people would regard Bugatti as being an exclusive brand. The minimum buy-in for one of the luxury maker’s models is currently around $5m, presuming you can get on the list to be allowed to actually buy one. But ultra-rich guys hate sharing anything, which is why Bugatti is set to offer a series of one-off models for its most demanding (and richest) customers. The first of these will be the car you see here, the one-of-one Bugatti Brouillard while will make its debut at Monterey Speed Week.
Named after Ettore Bugatti’s favorite horse, the Brouillard is essentially a coupe version of the Mistral roadster. Underneath it shares the same carbonfiber core architecture and quad-turbocharged W-16 as the Mistral, but almost every exterior panel is different. The Brouillard is also the first in what Bugatti says will be a series of “unique commissions” to be sold under the Solitaire subbrand. Design Director Frank Heyl says the plan is to produce will be no more than two of these one-offs a year, allowing buyers to make “unprecedented changes to bodywork and exterior elements of the car… a process similar to coachbuilding.”
Road & Track was invited to a preview event at Bugatti’s Berlin design studio last month, where we saw a full-size exterior model of the car. This didn’t have a finished interior – something the car at Monterey will have - but Bugatti has released rendered images for those of us unable to get under the rope to see the concept in person.
Apparently the finished car will be delivered to its customer in 2027, the company isn’t revealing his name, but says the buyer is “one of the world’s leading Bugatti customers.”
Mechanical details are essentially unchanged from the Mistral, the Brouillard using the same 1578-hp version of Bugatti’s long-lived 8.0-liter, quad-turbocharged W-16 engine and seven-speed dual-clutch transmission. The car will be delivered in Europe, meaning it has been sold under an individual type approval process rather than the full homologation that would have required multiple examples to be crash tested.
Although details of dimensions haven’t been released, Bugatti’s design team confirms the Brouillard is longer than the Mistral, with the extra length in an elongated front end. This still incorporates Bugatti’s traditional horseshoe shaped radiator grille surround, one of the details that Heyl says is non-negotiable when it comes to penning one-off models.
While the exterior side profile is similar to that of the Mistral, more tightly-wrapped and sculptural than the curvaceous Chiron, but the Brouillard’s roof is obviously all-new when compared to the always-open roadster. This will include both a see-through glass canopy and elongated milled-from-solid intake trumpets. At the rear is a fixed wing element above the Mistral’s X-shaped taillights, one of the shared few external components on the car.
The architecture of the interior is very similar to the Mistral, but the Brouillard’s buyer has given Bugatti’s design team full reign to make radical color and trim choices. The horse theme has been continued with equine graphics incorporated into seats and doors cards, these made from a tartan material created in part from actual horsehair. (Horse lovers will be pleased by confirmation that this is harvested without harming the animals themselves.)
A little more on the nose – and allowing less classy outlets than R&T to make entirely predictable Godfather jokes – is the fact the gear selector contains an aluminum-milled representation of an horse’s head set within glass. Another nod to the pony theme is the horseshoe shaped elements within the vast alloy wheels.
How much is all of this costing? You will likely be unsurprised to hear that Bugatti won’t say, although Heyl admits it will be “several times” the cost of one of the maker’s regular models. “Remember that the retail price has to recoup the entire investment of the project,” he says. Which – and we’re guesstimating wildly here – probably means something north of $15m. All for the ability to flex over other owners of what are suddenly going to look like common-or-garden Bugattis.
While Heyl refused to rule out seeing other Solitaire one-offs based on the soon-to-retire W-16 platform, he did confirm that the next-generation V-16 architecture that will underpin the forthcoming Bugatti Tourbillon will be much better suited to serving as the basis for other rare-groove one-offs. So if you are already on the list for a Tourbillon, why not open negotiations over adding your own fully unique model to the order?
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