The new Bugatti Destrier is a 1,578bhp Bolide reimagined as road-going art

Well, isn’t this just lovely. This is the Bugatti Destrier, the third car to emerge from Bugatti's 'Solitaire' programme (after the Brouillard and F.K.P. Hommage) and named after “the strongest type of medieval knight’s horse” that reimagines the mad, bad and mostly bewinged track-only Bugatti Bolide into a 1,578bhp work of art.

That’s right, 1,578bhp. Reports of the W16’s death, therefore, have been greatly exaggerated, because that 8.0-litre powerhaus… rides again. So no need for the... long face. Arf arf.

And it's a long, beautiful car. Bugatti itself declares it as one of “the most significant designs” it has ever done, centred around a simple mission brief along the lines of 'what if Bolide but no aero'. A philosophy that should be applied to more exotica, tbh.

There’s the same carbon fibre monocoque underneath, a slightly wider horseshoe grille, and thanks to the base Bolide’s already “extreme” profile, this Destrier sits low and wide, with a lovely uninterrupted line flowing in waves from front to back. Wide here, pinched there, swollen, shrunken, the Destrier wears it all.

This particular one-off also wears a one-off colour – ‘Sapphire Celeste’, what TopGear.com understands to broadly mean ‘midnighty purpley-blue-ish’ – flecked with sparkles and surrounded by polished aluminium and exposed carbon fibre.

The wheels are bigger here than on the Bolide – 20in/21in front and rear vs the track car’s measly 18s – while inside, Bugatti (or rather the car’s owner) has spared no expense in transforming the cabin into something less ‘where's my fireproof underwear’ and more ‘weekend jaunt to the Alps, anyone’.

Leather. Nubuck. 3D-knitted textile. Three materials Bugatti focused on, all finished in a delightful warm brown, along with countless other details: the special stitching, hammered brightwork, the tiny French flag.

“Destrier is not a car you understand with your head, it is a car you feel with your heart,” said Bugatti’s design boss Frank Heyl. “The Bolide gave us the most extreme proportions we have ever created, and by freeing them from the Bolide’s relentless pursuit of downforce, we let them speak as pure sculpture.”

He points to ye olde Type 57 chassis that formed the basis of two equally delectable Bugattis: one a Le Mans winner (the Type 57 ‘Tank’ racer) and the gorgeous Type 57SC Atlantic. Indeed, as a nod to this history of one chassis birthing two very different cars, there’s a laser-engraved (hand engraved of course) plate above the windscreen depicting both the 57G and 57SC.

“I believe Destrier will be gracing Concours lawns 50 years from now,” Heyl added. Forget 50 years from now – it’ll  star at the Monterey Car Week and Pebble Beach Concours on 16 August. Lovely.