For 19 years, Achim Anscheidt’s hand guided Bugatti design. Joining as design director in 2004, his tenure began with the launch of the Veryon and would end shortly before the Chiron too retired. During that time, he amassed a portfolio of rare and even the only hypercars to wear the Bugatti badge.
As a reward for his contribution, Bugatti created a short but very cool video showing off his work. Shared on social media, we’ve watched the Veyron and Chiron transform through various special editions and individual models, but keep an eye on the transition. There are some surprises in it.
That’s because Anscheidt doesn’t only work on Bugattis production. Starting with the Veyron Grand Sport, the video goes through the Super Sport and Grand Sport Vitesse but doesn’t make it straight to the Chiron. Lest we forget the four-door, four-seater Bugatti Galibier concept from 2009 that looked promising but never went into production. Apparently, Bugatti’s parent company, Volkswagen, didn’t like the design, so Anscheidt joined Chiron.
However, we still don’t jump right into Chiron. The first is the Bugatti Vision Gran Turismo concept, which was created for Gran Turismo Sport racing game on the Playstation 4 but it’s not just a digital machine. A real-life model using a prototype Chiron was built, debuting in 2015 as a preview replacement for the Veyron.
22 Photo
The video then shows us the Bugatti Atlantic concept, a strange vehicle envisioned as a front-engined companion to the mid-engined Chiron. Because of this, the car featured a very long hood with a V8 power under it, but fell victim to VW’s diesel emissions scandal and was never officially disclosed. It’s coming out in 2020, and for what it’s worth, we’re excited to see Bugatti revisit it here in this design tribute to Anscheidt.
From there, things got familiar. Debuting in 2016, the Chiron has become the benchmark luxury hypercar with its 1,600 hp W16 engine. In addition to several Chiron variants, Anscheidt also provided us with many coachbuilt models such as the Divo, Bolide, Centodieci and the one-off La Voiture Noire, among others.
However, his legacy is not over. Development of a yet-to-be-named Chiron successor began under his tutelage two years ago. Bugatti recently confirmed its next-generation hypercar will debut in 2024 with production starting in 2026.
