Bugatti is working on a “completely new combustion engine”

The open-top Mistral – the final ever outing for the W16 engine - might have wooed the crowds at Pebble Beach last week, but something much bigger is brewing at Bugatti. Just under a year since the Bugatti Rimac coalition formed, Mate Rimac is already hard at work shaping what the future holds… and it’s not what you’d expect.

“When we started to discuss about the takeover of Bugatti, VW and Porsche were telling me the next Bugatti needs to be electric. And that would be the easiest thing, to take the Nevera, which we have developed for five years - it's already the highest performance electric car - and just rebadge into a Bugatti,” Rimac told us during a Top Gear Magazine Podcast special at the Quail.

“I was fighting furiously with the management of Porsche and Volkswagen. Really heated arguments that the next Bugatti shouldn't be electric. I think that was absolutely the right decision. So we decided to keep Rimac all electric and Bugatti, for the foreseeable future, will have combustion engines with strong hybridisation, interesting combinations with combustion and electric powertrains.”

No word yet on cubic capacity, cylinder or turbo count, only “you’ll be very surprised what kind of combustion engine". A three-cylinder zinger like the Koenigsegg Gemera? A flat-16? Who knows, but when Rimac’s involved, expect the unexpected. “Very few people have developed, truly developed, a full car from scratch. We have done that with Nevera, previously with the Concept One and now with the next Bugattis we are doing it again.”

And there’s plenty to come from Molsheim in the meantime, too. Before the Mistral (99 units, €5m a pop, all sold out) goes into production, the track-only Bolide is still on course to show the world what a light(er) weight Bugatti can do.

“So the difference between an LMP1 car and the Bolide is, first of all, you can fit two people in. And secondly, you don't need a team of twenty people behind you. You come to a track with that car and just go bonkers,” Rimac explains, grinning uncontrollably. “And you can achieve crazy G-forces, like 3G in a corner or while braking. It generates, I think, three and a half tonnes of downforce. It's absolutely insane what that car can do, so it's going to be really exciting for people who can afford it and use it.”