Bugatti Details How It Turned The Chiron Pur Sport Into A Track-Eating Monster

On paper, the Bugatti Chiron Pur Sport looks like it’s doing too little to justify its positioning as the “most extreme hyper sports car created by Bugatti so far” but apparently there’s more than meets the eye.

The key figures reveal that the Pur Sport variant of the Chiron is about 50 kg (110 lbs) lighter than the regular model, has 15 percent shorter gearing, firmer suspension setup and features the same 1,500 PS (1,479 hp) and 1,600 Nm (1,180 lb-ft) out of its quad-turbo 8.0-liter W16 which can now rev 200 rpm higher, redlining at 6,900 rpm.

Although it doesn’t sound like a big difference, the Chiron Pur Sport actually features some big changes that required “fundamental and complex technical modifications” in order to make it the best handling Chiron there is.

The chassis received the bulk of these changes, with Bugatti engineers changing the camber on both axles to negative 2.5 degrees but in order to do that, they had to develop new suspension joints. The engineers had to simulate 17 different variants before picking the right one for the Pur Sport.

The new stiffer springs feature a rate of 166N/mm at the front and 200N/mm at the rear over the regular Chiron’s 100N/mm at the front and 150N/mm at the rear. “The significantly harder springs offer the best compromise between sporty handling, traction, and ride comfort for the Chiron Pur Sport. It took us many, many test kilometers to arrive at this conclusion,” said Jachin Schwalbe, Head of Chassis Development at Bugatti.

In addition, Bugatti had to upgrade the connection of the spring struts to the body with significantly harder bearings – 130 percent stiffer at the front, 77 percent stiffer at the rear. The result is a vast improvement in steering precision and overall handling. “The driver knows in advance exactly where the Chiron Pur Sport is going, so only minimum steering movement is required,” adds Schwalbe.

The seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission also received a lot of modifications, with all the gears shortened by 15 percent and many components modified. The result is even better acceleration than the regular Chiron: 0-62 mph (100 km/h) in 2.3 seconds instead of 2.4, 0-124 mph (200 km/h) in 5.9 seconds instead of 6.1. But the really big difference shows in the elasticity of the engine. Bugatti claims that the Pur Sport can accelerate in sixth gear from 60 to 120 km/h (37 to74 mph) in 4.4 seconds instead of 7.4.

There’s also a new ESC-Sport+ driving mode that will allow drivers to perform controlled drifts at a greater angle than before. “We can now give the driver greater freedom on dry circuits,” explains Christian Willmann, Bugatti’s engineer of the driving dynamics slip control systems. “The great art is to control the engine torque so that the car accelerates noticeably without feeling constricted.“

The price to pay for the added agility and responsiveness is of course top speed; the combination of the new softer -and therefore stickier- tires (Bugatti-exclusive Michelin Sport Cup 2 Rs) with the negative camber and the higher downforce led Bugatti into limiting the top speed to 217 mph (350 km/h). “In return, the Chiron Pur Sport offers exceptional road grip over the entire speed range,” added Jachin Schwalbe.

The Bugatti Chiron Pur Sport will be limited to 60 examples worldwide, with a base price tag of 3 million euros in Europe and a base MSRP of $3,599,000 in the United States.