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CNN
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Bugatti sold its latest all-gas supercar at auction in Paris on Wednesday for more than $10 million, setting a world auction record for a new car.
Originally a specially developed model that was never intended for sale, the one-of-a-kind Bugatti Chiron Profilée was sold at RM Paris collector car auction for a bid of $9.5 million. With fees paid to the auction house, the final sale price was about $10.7 million.
The price was well above the $4.5 million to $6 million RM Sotheby’s estimate for the car. The eight-figure price eclipses previous new car auction sales, according to Hagerty, a company that tracks the collector car market. (But privately, a trio of new bespoke, highly customized Rolls Royces sold in 2021 for around $25 million apiece.)
Bidding for this shiny blue supercar has gotten so high because it’s unique, and in cases like this, collectors are “bidding knowing they won’t get a second chance,” said John Wiley, manager of valuation and analytics at Hagerty.
Going from zero to 100 kilometers per hour, or 62 miles per hour, in just 2.3 seconds, the Profilée is the fastest-accelerating Chiron model, according to Bugatti. It is capable of accelerating to 200 km/h or 124 mph in 5.5 seconds. Capable of reaching 236 mph, it also has a higher top speed than the Pur Sport, but still not as high as some other Bugatti models, which can, at least in theory, reach 300 mph.
The French ultra-luxury automaker previously indicated that the W16 Mistral convertible, unveiled last August, would be its last gas-powered model. Only 99 of these cars will be made at a cost of at least $5 million each. Matte Rimac, CEO of Bugatti Rimac, Bugatti’s parent company, said that Bugatti’s next high-performance model will be a plug-in hybrid with a different kind of gas engine.
As it turned out, Bugatti had one more gas-powered car for sale—and really only one. But this Bugatti was not originally intended for sale at all.
The Bugatti Chiron Profilée has been in development since late 2020 as one of several versions of the Chiron, Bugatti’s flagship model. Bugatti has always said that only 500 Chirons will ever be made. Included in this 500 are several variants, such as the Chiron Sport, Chiron Pur Sport and Chiron Super Sport, each with varying degrees of top speed, acceleration and cornering aggressiveness. (Bugatti also made several other models, such as the Mistral and Divo, which share engineering with the Chiron but are considered separate models.)
While the Chiron, with its turbocharged 16-cylinder engine capable of producing nearly 1,600 horsepower, offers incredible performance, the Pur Sport delivers more aggressive handling and suspension and even quicker acceleration. But some customers were interested in something that was a combination of the two, offering the performance of the Pur Sport but with softer styling.
As a result, Bugatti engineers and designers began work on a new variant of the Chiron with the characteristics of the Pur Sport, but with a more elegant, flowing design. The Profilée has a larger grille and wider front air intakes than the base Chiron to take in more air to cool the big engine. The transmission was also redesigned for shorter gear ratios to provide faster acceleration and the engine could run up to higher speeds.
The Profilée is the fastest-accelerating Chiron model, according to Bugatti. It is capable of accelerating from zero to 100 km/h, or 62 mph, in just 2.3 seconds and to 200 km/h, or 124 mph, in 5.5 seconds. Capable of reaching 236 mph, it also has a higher top speed than the Pur Sport, but still not as high as some other Bugatti models, which can, at least in theory, reach 300 mph.
The car’s name, Profilée, comes from a kind of elegant teardrop body design used on some famous Bugatti cars from the 1930s.
At one point, executives realized that all 500 Chiron models had already been ordered before the Profilée could be offered to customers. However, they decided to bring this single car to completion that the development model engineers had been working on. The buyer, who the auction company is not identifying, will take the car directly from Bugatti.
Although this is the last car sold with a W16 petrol engine, it will not be the last to be delivered to a customer. Bugatti, which produces roughly 80 cars a year, still has a backlog of paid orders through 2025, a company representative said.