The unique Bugatti Chiron Super Sport ‘Golden Era’

Henry Ford revolutionised making cars when he used the assembly line process, reducing the time from days to 93 minutes for the Model T. In the modern era, advanced processes and equipment, especially robots, have enabled companies like Tesla and Ford to make cars in under a minute.

These high speeds of completing cars are necessary to produce thousands of units quickly to meet market demand. Some degree of personalisation is possible through varying options but generally customers have to accept that their neighbour might have a car that looks almost identical.

For those who have a lot of money, it is possible to personalise their car to a very great extent. Their car is built the way cars were built before Ford’s mass production with craftsmanship by humans working on individual units.

Bespoke craftsmanship
Bugatti is one of the companies that offers such bespoke craftsmanship combined with modern techniques. Thus every car it delivers is unique, having been personalised by the customer who will understandably expect the very best considering how much he or she pays.

Perhaps the most challenging bespoke project that Bugatti has ever undertaken is the Chiron Super Sport ‘Golden Era’. It took two years to complete and stretches beyond the already near-infinite levels of Bugatti customization.

Celebrating W16 engine design
The vision came from a Bugatti collector in America with a deep appreciation for the brand’s history and for the intricate engineering of the W16 engine. Not only did he choose a Chiron Super Sport to celebrate the combustion engine design, but he wanted to appropriately pay homage to the history that had led to the creation of this engine.

Project of a rare nature
With this vision presented, the design team developed a proposal that would result in the ‘Golden Era’. Extensive special commissions such as this are exceedingly rare – we usually see no more than one or two creations on this scale each year. 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,” recalled Achim Anscheidt, former Bugatti Design Director in charge of this creation

Given the brief, the team first looked back through Bugatti history to find a number of landmark moments, including the times of Ettore Bugatti, Jean Bugatti and Roland Bugatti, which really marked the first golden era for the brand.

And then, of course, the modern-day incarnation of Bugatti from 1987, picking out the icons from these times that came to define the brand. “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!” said Anscheidt.

“Sur Mesure [Bugatti’s personalisation division] literally translates as tailored and it is this complete ultra-luxury customer-centric approach to car design that really sets it apart. Our teams will work hand-in-hand with our customers to craft exactly what they want, and then work closely with them over the course of months or even years to transform it into a reality. 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,” said Bugatti’s Managing Director, Hendrik Malinowski.

Bugatti legacy captured in sketches
The overall project for the car would capture the legacy of Bugatti, a story told through a composition of beautifully intricate sketches depicting milestones from the legendary brand. It is undeniably a showcase of the moments when Bugatti changed the course of automotive history with its new innovations.

On the passenger side, 26 hand-drawn sketches reveal icons like the Type 41 Royale – lauded as the most luxurious car when revealed in 1926 – and the Type 57 SC Atlantic, widely regarded as the most beautiful car ever designed.

On the driver’s side, 19 sketches portray the rebirth and enduring success of Bugatti since 1987, tracing from the EB110, through the Veyron and Chiron. A beautifully simple representation of the 3,712 individual components that come together to create the legendary W16 engine – the most advanced automotive engine ever built – rightfully takes its place as a part of the masterpiece.

The team refined their artworks for the project until they achieved precisely the right scale, proportion and form for each of the individual sketches, bringing them together to form one beautiful artwork.

But this art would need an appropriate canvas. A bespoke colour, a timeless and celebratory shade of gold named ‘Dore’ was created. It was applied to the car with a gradient colour split into a special metallic variant of ‘Nocturne Black’, creating the perfect base for the designers to begin the daunting process of sketching directly onto the car.

Authenticity is paramount for a Bugatti
“It was very clear to us from the beginning that we could 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,” Anscheidt revealed.

Of course, even for the most experienced and skilled designer, the task of sketching – purely by hand – onto a specially commissioned hyper sportscar, was extremely intimidating. From the very first stroke of the pencil, this painstaking, manual process saw Bugatti’s uniquely talented team of designers elevating their craft further still in pursuit of perfection.

Inevitably, this took a great deal of time, and involved some setbacks along the way. But with extremes of passion, a degree of trial and learnings, the last one of the sketches was eventually completed.

In the process, a brand new technique was developed to achieve the desired finish for the exterior artwork. In all, this stage of the process took more than 400 hours – testament to the complexity of the artwork.

Bugatti icons within too
To create a fully immersive celebration, the design team ensured their proposal would be reflected in the interior. On each of the door panels, three Bugatti icons were hand-applied with a bespoke paint and fine paint brush that would allow one of the design team to draw directly onto the leather.

The EB110, Veyron and Chiron, legends of the present day, are facing the icons of the past that had inspired them: the Type 35 – the world’s greatest racing car – Type 57 SC Atlantic – the most beautiful car in the world – and Type 41 Royale – renowned as the most luxurious car ever created – applied to the opposite side of the interior.

The Chiron Super Sport ‘Golden Era’, regarded as being beyond comparison in the scale of its bespoke ambition, was delivered this week to its owner at the Monterey Car Week in California.

Ultra exclusive Bugatti Residences to be built in Dubai