Bugatti is proud of its brand-new 16-cylinder engine. Why wouldn’t it be, after all? The naturally aspirated engine makes 1,000 horsepower. It can spin through 9,000 rpm. It’s almost less engine and more experience and art. Now, in the latest in a long series of short videos leading up to the deliveries of the first copies of the Tourbillon (embedded at the bottom of this article), Bugatti is giving us a closer look at the story of the engine. And the sound of the engine. And of the artwork of this incredible piece of machinery.
Bugatti Needed To Replace A Moonshot
Since the first modern Bugatti, the Veyron, launched in 2005, a 16-cylinder engine has been a key part of the equation. The original quad-turbo W16 was a moonshot from an engineer and CEO with as much ambition as money, and Ferdinand Piëch had a lot of both. Piëch brought the W layout to the Volkswagen Group, creating, among other highlights, a series of absurd W8 and W12 engines, as well as the Veyron’s W16.
That engine has since been retired, meaning Bugatti, under a CEO as ambitious if not as flush with cash, had to deliver a new engine. It reached out to the engine experts at Cosworth to create a new engine for a new generation of cars.
With just 300cc more displacement and zero turbochargers, the new V16 matched the original W16’s horsepower. It was to be a more emotional engine, with more sound and a much higher redline. This video shows us parts of that engine that we had never expected to see. At least not before a YouTuber gets one sometime around 2040, with a blown-up engine to tear down and show us.
For Bugatti and Cosworth, it wasn’t enough to simply create a powerful engine. The engine also had to be a work of art. The company said it took “countless” iterations of the intake plenum, for example, to create the final glorious design. A design that is equal parts capable of feeding the engine incredible amounts of air and looking like it could be hung in a museum.
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Bugatti notes the challenges of a V16 compared with the old W-shape engine. “The naturally aspirated V16 is one of the largest engines ever created, measuring nearly a meter in length,” said Bugatti CTO Emilio Scervo. “Just imagine the size of the crankshaft inside – it’s massive.”
An Incredible Look Inside This New Masterpiece
Scervo said that “Bugatti has always been about doing things differently. As a brand, we take on challenges that others wouldn’t attempt.” The V16 is “the ultimate expression of that mindset,” he added, “delivering both raw emotion and unparalleled performance in a way only Bugatti can.”
The short video A 16-Cylinder Heart is part of an extensive series that Bugatti has produced leading up to the launch of the Tourbillon. It gives us a very in-depth look at the development process, including watching (and hearing) the engine being run to the ragged edge on the dynomometer and in the car.
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Eight pipes release the V16’s sounds.
It goes beyond that, though, showing us a breakdown of the engine. Of the extremely long crankshaft, the incredibly intricate valvetrain, and everything else, all laid out on a table. It’s a five-minute video, but we’re guessing it could easily be a half-hour watch.
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