Photo : Bugatti

The day after cracking a record of 304.7 mph with its Chiron Sport, Bugatti has announced that it’s all done with that sort of thing. It’s retiring from trying to set speed records.


That’s a pretty surprising announcement for a marque that’s well known for absolutely crushing records. Bugatti set a speed record in its Veyron Super Sport in 2010 with a speed of 267.8 mph, followed a few years later by a record for fastest open-top production car with the Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse, hitting a top speed of 254 mph.

The company’s president, Stephan Winkelmann, has announced via press release that Bugatti’s era of speed has, unfortunately, come to a close:

Our goal was to be the first manufacturer ever to reach the magic 300-mile-per-hour mark. We have now achieved this – making ourselves, the entire team and myself, incredibly proud. We have shown several times that we build the fastest cars in the world. In future we will focus on other areas.


It’s the end of an era.

I suppose it makes sense—the world is pretty full of manufacturers aiming to produce the fastest car in the world: Koenigsegg’s Jesko, Hennessey’s Venom F5, SCC North America’s Tuatara. Why push yourself beyond your boundaries when you already have a hell of a lot of name recognition and a decades-old fan base?

But that leaves a massive open-end here. What “other areas” will Bugatti be focusing on? Best miles per gallon? Most expensive production car? Most complicated aerodynamics? Least amount of screens? Only time will tell.