Designers attempt to build a better Bugatti (concept car Friday)
The team at Racer X Design attempt to tame the Bugatti Veyron with a 2+2 configuration and room for luggage.
- North American Car, Truck and SUV of the Year (NACTOY) Awards Juror
The Bugatti Veyron EB 16.4 sits as a halo car among halo cars, but the 5-year-old aesthetic of the 1,001-horsepower supercar is starting to look a bit long in the tooth. But with the exception of the awkwardly styled 16C Galibier concept, Bugatti seems content to trot out variants and special editions of the same Veyron for the last few car show seasons, leaving the rest of us to speculate as to the nature of the hypercar of the next decade.
Enter Racer X Design. This independent auto design team has taken the major design cues of the venerable Veyron (the two-tone paint scheme and the archway grill that punctuates the long, low hood and wide sculpted body) and tossed them into a creative blender with more than a little inspiration from Bugatti's Volkswagen Group mates--at least that's how we imagine it happened. The end result is the Bugatti Type 12-2 Streamliner concept.
Up front, the Type 12-2 features rounded headlamps, LED running lights, and deep cooling ducts not unlike those of the current batch of Porsche vehicles. The Type 12-2 also gains a small pair of rear seats and a fixed roof, changing its configuration from a 2-seat roadster to a 2+2 coupe. The rear track appears to benefit from a bit of widening to make room for the two new passengers. In doing so, the coupe also gains larger rear haunches that arch upward into the side glass creating a kink at the B-pillar and giving the vehicle a forward-canted, aggressive appearance. Punctuating the tail of the concept are a pair of simple ovoid tail lights. Sometimes less is more.
Viewed in profile, the Type 12-2 retains most of the Veyron's low roofline, but sharp-eyed viewers will notice a bit more junk in the trunk. However, you won't find the 12-2's engine on display beneath its rear glass, only ample storage for luggage. Racer X has chosen to go with a front-engined, rear-drive (FR) configuration with its concept.
On the subject of performance, things get considerably more hypothetical. This being purely a design study (and not even a Bugatti-commissioned one) any power-train speculation should be taken with more than a few grains of salt. Racer X's specified FR configuration seems to eliminate the Veyron's all-wheel drive, quad-turbo W-16 configuration. Meanwhile, the name "12-2" seems to hint at a 12-cylinder mill sleeping beneath the coupe's hood.
Pop over to Racer X Design for more images of the Type 12-2 Streamliner concept. While you're there, check out the rest of its portfolio, which features a few wild takes on Chrysler, BMW, and Alfa Romeo vehicles.