I hate to break it to you, but you’re wrong. Unless of course you’re one of the 250 lucky souls with a contract for delivery, from 2026, of the world’s most exclusive car – the Bugatti Tourbillon. Now should you indeed be one of those 250 and read this blog, I would of course be very honored!

Bugatti’s new hypercar is also its first hybrid, and the first car to be developed under the joint company Bugatti-Rimac, where Rimac is the Croatian supercar EV brand of Matje Rimac, Croatia’s version of Christian von Koenigsegg. Since 2021, Matje is CEO of the joint company with Bugatti, and there’s no doubt a lot of Rimac’s knowledge that have gone into the Tourbillon’s hybrid solution.

The numbers are, as always, completely bonkers. Up to 1800 hp out of a combination of an 8.3 litre W16 petrol engine and three electrical engines together with an eight-speed double-clutch gearbox enable a top speed of 455 kph. The Tourbillon is of course four-wheel drive and Bugatti-Rimac have managed to make the car weigh in at (just) below two tons. If you were ever lucky enough to drive it, preferably on a circuit, you’d reach 100 kph in below two seconds, 200 in five, 300 in about 10, and 400 kph in 25 seconds. If you have the balls and don’t run out of runway, that is.

The mighty engine has been developed together with Cosworth and has a crankshaft that is longer than one meter. It’s mid-mounted, visible through the transparent hood, and good for 1.000 hp and 900 Nm. It’s complemented by two electric engines up front and one in the back. These are fed by up to 25 KwH from an 800 volt battery and are said to be the most powerful electric engines ever made. They should enable about 60 km of fully electric range.

Of course, this being a Bugatti, all this happens in ocean of luxury and style. The name Tourbillon comes from the movement in mechanical watches set to correct gravity for a more precise time-keeping. The Tourbillon’s gauge cluster (a complete misnomer), of course developed with Swiss watchmakers, consists of over 600 parts made in titan, sapphires and rubies. The floating center console out of crystal glass and aluminum is produced in 13 steps to ensure it doesn’t break in an accident. And so on.

The Tourbillon’s design is said to be inspired by traditional Bugatti masterpieces, notably the Type 57SC Atlantique, considered one of the world’s prettiest cars. It was presented earlier this spring to a selected few at the company’s headquarters in Molsheim in eastern France, and any car that might not have been sold before certainly found a new owner then. Like previous ones, they would most probably be asked to make a pretty sizeable down payment on the total price, set to 3.8 million EUR. I hope any American buyers paid up earlier this year, because with the dollar on a downward trend, that’s about USD 300.000 more now than it would have been in January. Then again, in this price segment, that’s not much more than a rounding error…