This new one-off coachbuilt commission is what happens when a client has the good sense to just stand back and let the Bugatti design team cook. It’s called the Bugatti Destrier, and it’s only the third car to emerge from the French firm’s exclusive Programme Solitaire.
We don’t know who commissioned this car, nor do we know how much they paid. If we had to guess, we’d say it’s probably over $25 million.
But what we do know is that the car you see here is real. Despite its fantastic proportions, incredible lines, and seemingly impossible stance, these images are not of a concept car. This is not AI-generated content (gross). This is it, the real Bugatti Destrier, and it is absolutely and utterly magnificent.
It’s named after the strongest type of horse ridden by medieval knights, and it’s based on the track-day-only Bolide racecar. Except here, the Bolide is reimagined without all the downforce-generating winglets, fins, vents, and other aerodynamic ugliness.
“Destrier is not a car you understand with your head, it is a car you feel with your heart,” explains Frank Heyl, Bugatti’s director of design. “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.”
When Heyl says “extreme proportions,” he means it. Parked by the side of the road, the Destrier is just one metre (39 inches) tall, much lower than any other Bugatti. It wouldn’t even go up to the waist of an average adult. And yet, despite its low stance, the engineers managed to fit 20-inch wheels at the front and 21-inch wheels at the rear. Over half of its total height is taken up by wheels; that’s a great ratio. It’s like a concept car come to life.
“I believe Destrier will be gracing Concours lawns 50 years from now,” says Heyl. He’s not bragging. He’s right.
As Heyl told SHARP in an interview last year: “I have two daughters. Maybe they will have children one day. And maybe, you know, I can walk the lawn of some Concours d’Elegance with my grandchildren, and show them what granddaddy had been working on back in the day. So, that’s the vision,” Heyl says. “I don’t know, maybe it never happens, but it’s a dream of mine.”
We’re sure his dream will come true; just look at this machine. It’s art, a high-speed sculpture. There’s no bad angle, no bad line.
“Destrier is not a car you understand with your head, it is a car you feel with your heart.”Frank Heyl, Bugatti’s director of design
Inside, it gets even more interesting, with a seating position more akin to what you’d find in a Formula 1 car. All of the colour and material choices are pretty radical too.
“Every material in Destrier was chosen the way a tailor selects cloth,” explains Sabine Consolini, Bugatti’s head of colour and trim. At first glance, the material that flows across the dashboard and surrounds the cabin looks like cork, or maybe some kind of stone. In fact, as Consolini explains, it’s a 3D-knit textile threaded with fine copper. On the other hand, the navy blue paint — sorry, “Sapphire Celeste” — over caramel leather is a timeless combination that shows impressive restraint.
“Nothing shouts. Every surface is measured, tactile, and made for one person alone,” Consolini adds.
A quad-turbo 8.0-litre W16 engine making 1,578 horsepower completes the package, but it’s not the headline. Bugatti put that detail at the end of its news release, almost like an afterthought.
“True to the spirit of the project, [the engine] is a detail offered almost in passing: as with the great Concours-winning cars of the past, Destrier’s story is one of proportion and craftsmanship, not outright performance,” the company explains.
Previously, the Programme Solitaire produced two other one-off cars, the Brouillard and F.K.P. Hommage. The F.K.P. is a modern homage to Bugatti’s own Veyron, while the Brouillard is one of the most achingly desirable supercars ever made. But now there’s the Destrier… oof, choosing a favourite is impossible.
“Where previous Solitaire commissions — Brouillard and F.K.P. Hommage — were crafted from emotive stories and steeped in history, Destrier is instead an instinctive, emotional design-first sculptural masterpiece,” the company explains. Maybe we’re jumping the gun here a bit, but it does already feel like a masterpiece.
Heyl and his team were cooking with this one. The Destrier is slated to make its public debut at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance on August 16, before its lucky owner drives it off into the sunset.
