The Bugatti Chiron Super Sport ‘Golden Era’ Is A Hand-Sketched Masterpiece
The golden hypercar is a rolling homage to Bugatti’s most important automobiles.
The reveal of the most extravagant one-off Bugatti Chiron conceived in the hypercar’s seven year history helped kick off Monterey Car Week in truly resplendent fashion.
This is the Bugatti Chiron Super Sport Golden Era, a bespoke creation from Bugatti’s Sur Mesure customization division. It’s a celebration of Bugatti’s W16, production of which will cease when the final, track-only Mistral roadster rolls out of the marque’s Molsheim, France factory, as Car and Driver points out.
The gargantuan 8.0-liter W16 engine clocks 1,578 horsepower in this tune, which was enough to shoot the long-tailed carbon-bodied coupe to 60 mph in just 2.2 seconds at the hands of independent testers at Car and Driver. But that performance isn’t what makes the Golden Era special.
The customer—a Bugatti superfan who’s especially fond of the W16 engine—wanted his commission to be a rolling homage to the engineering history that culminated in the creation of the unparalleled powerplant, which was first implemented in the Veyron nearly 20 years ago.
“Given the vision and exacting nature for this project—and the fantastical ideation we wanted to realize—‘Golden Era’ is probably the most demanding piece of tailored personalization work that my team and I have ever worked on,” said Achim Anscheidt, the former Bugatti Design Director who took charge of the project.
“Our team proposed a concept featuring 45 sketches of the brand’s icons that would be hand-drawn directly onto the car itself, and the owner immediately fell in love with the idea. The implementation may sound quite straightforward, but achieving a perfect finish, and one that would last the test of time, took more patience and craftsmanship than you could ever imagine.”
First, a bespoke gold color dubbed “Doré” was created and applied across much of the car—the hue gradates toward a metallic black near the front quarter panel. After the base coat was finished, the meticulous, 400-hour process of hand-sketching historic collages of Bugatti vehicles began.
“It was very clear to us from the beginning that we can only achieve an authentic finish for these sketches—and at Bugatti authenticity is paramount—if we actually used the pencils that we use for sketching on paper—anything else would result in something looking fake or low in quality. So that’s why we had to find a process that would allow us to use pencils and do all of the sketches by hand, directly onto the paintwork.”
The passenger side features icons from Bugatti’s first era, from 1909 until founder Ettore Bugatti’s death in 1949. The Type 41 Royale—lauded as the most luxurious car when revealed in 1926— is included here, as it the Type 57 SC Atlantic, widely regarded as one of the most beautiful car ever designed.
On the driver’s side, 19 automotive sketches of modern exotics, including the EB110, Veyron and Chiron, offer a visual timeline from Bugatti’s 1987 rebirth to the present. A simplified representation of the 3,712 individual components that create the W16 serves as the centerpiece.
Inside, three Bugatti icons were hand-applied to each door panel with a special paint-and-brush combo designed for leather application. The EB110, Veyron and Chiron face their ancestors: the Type 35 the Type 57 SC Atlantic, and the Type 41 Royale. They are surrounded by other one-of-a-kind motifs, including subtle “Golden Era” stitching and hand-written “One-of-One” reminders.
Bugatti Managing Director, Hendrik Malinowski, adds, “Sur Mesure literally translates as tailored and it is this complete ultra-luxury customer-centric approach to car design that really sets it apart Each step, every decision and—in the case of the Golden Era—every stroke of the pencil, was completed with the close oversight and input of the owner to exceed his expectations in a way that no other brand is able to do.”
The official handover to the customer took place at Monterey Car Week. The price hasn’t been announced, but it was definitely more than the $4 million base cost of the Bugatti Chiron Super Sport.
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