Most manufacturers stop at 12 cylinders. Anything beyond that, in most cases, becomes far too specialised, complex and costly to justify. There are only a tiny handful that have ever gone further, and one of them is Bugatti. In its modern era, as a pursuer of world-beating top speeds, it’s been defined by its 8.0-litre, quad-turbocharged W16 engine, which has nestled in the middle of the Veyron, Chiron and their many ultra-rare or one-off derivatives.
Its next car will be its first to use something else, but for once, this isn’t a case of downsizing: Bugatti is just giving something else a go, and it’s reviving an engine configuration not seen in a production car since the 1990s: a V16.
It’ll also be Bugatti’s first hybrid car, and we’d put good money on the electric element being developed by Rimac, with whom Bugatti has been in a joint venture since 2021. Right now, that’s about all we know. Whether it’ll be another mid-engined super-coupe in the image of Veyron and Chiron, or if it’ll take another form, remains to be seen. We don’t even have any idea what it’ll be called, but we’ll find out when it gets a full reveal in June.
Things like power, engine capacity and performance are equally up in the air, but we do know what the engine looks like, and what it sounds like. What it looks like is, quite frankly, a piece of sculpture; all carbon fibre, beautifully curving pipework and intricately crafted cam covers.
What it sounds like is… something different to any Bugatti that’s come before it. It sounds rawer, more aggressive, more eager to rev – perhaps even naturally aspirated? This could suggest a new approach for Bugatti, something different to the goal of outright velocity that it’s tended to pursue in the past.
Bugatti V16 engine
It joins a highly exclusive club of V16-powered cars. The last one was 1991’s Cizeta V16T, a vanishingly rare supercar based on a rejected design for the Lamborghini Diablo and powered by a 6.0-litre engine that was effectively two Lamborghini V8s fused together.
Prior to that, you have to go all the way back to the 1930s, and a couple of American cars favoured by the era’s high society: the Cadillac V-16 and Marmon Sixteen. Both BMW and Cadillac have built V16-powered prototypes and concepts since, but production has never materialised.
Now, finally, this fleetingly rare engine layout is making a comeback. We can’t wait to see the sort of machine it’s powering.
