Behold the Bugatti Mistral 'La Perle Rare'
For when a plain old W16 roadster just isn't special enough, you call Bugatti Sur Mesure...
As the road-going swansong for the W16 engine, the 8.0-litre, quad-turbo monster that has defined modern Bugatti over the past 20 years, the Mistral was always going to be a bit special. Even by the standards of Molsheim megacars, the last-of-the-line W16 - even if it was being replaced by a V16 - qualified as something a bit extra. But when plain old era-ending hypercar won’t do, Bugatti Sur Mesure is on hand for something extra special.
This is the W16 Mistral La Perle Rare and, yes, you can find that designation in script both under the spoiler and inside. It’s described as nothing less than a ‘profoundly personal work of art’, first dreamed up by a customer and Bugatti’s Head of Sur Mesure Joseph Straub after meeting at Pebble Beach in 2023. The aim, they say, was to ‘curate the extraordinary’, to take the Mistral and ‘enrich its character with a sculptural, flowing aesthetic that has become a signature statement for a select few, mesmerising Bugatti vehicles in the marque’s recent history’. When you get a Sur Mesure commission, Bugatti goes full Bugatti.
The result of that ambition is two colours never before seen on anything made in Molsheim, and which are bespoke to La Perle Rare. Specifically, they are a ‘golden colourway with warm highlights’ and a ‘refined warm white’. What began as a ‘silver concept’ evolved into what you see here after collaboration with a wider team and the customer. To call it two-tone would surely seriously underplay the skill and effort employed to make a car look like this, but the Mistral is predominantly white at the bottom and mainly gold at the top. Why? To create ‘a beautiful separation between the upper and lower sections of the car, echoing the interplay between ground and sky.’
Furthermore, when spending hundreds of hours on paint, it may as well be celebrated to its fullest. So the wheels aren’t gold and white, but they are a ‘specially curated paint mixture’ that aims to combine the best of both. Again, it’s unlike pretty much anything else we’ve ever seen from Bugatti. And a parking valet’s worst nightmare.
Speaking of which, the interior - should it ever be used for driving anywhere - looks almost specifically designed to get grubby. It isn’t, obviously, it’s merely that the ‘ode to elegance continued in curating the cabin’, but making all carbon components white, using white leather everywhere and white stitching where gold hide is used looks like a dirt disaster. Hopefully La Perle Rare comes with matching driving gloves. And the dancing elephant, if you were also wondering, is the work of Rembrandt Bugatti. Maybe not an interior vision to please everyone, but then that’s the point of bespoke commissions - it’s personal down to the last square centimetre. And to make something that actually looks different after 20 years of unique Chirons, Veyrons and whatever else is some achievement.
Where La Perle Rare Mistral is going, who’s bought it, and what on earth they’ve paid to have this incredible level of customisation obviously hasn’t been made public. But it’s never going to be mistaken for another Bugatti, or even another Mistral for that matter, and so in that respect it surely goes down as another Sur Mesure success. Straub said of this Bugatti: “The Mistral ‘La Perle Rare’ is an extraordinary example of what becomes possible when a client’s imagination meets the full creative and technical capabilities of our Sur Mesure offering… It is both an honour and a privilege to contribute my own design signature to a creation that celebrates Bugatti’s inimitable design style and rich heritage, while embodying the individuality that makes this Sur Mesure commission so special.’ Don’t be surprised if more follow soon, then, as well as additional projects from the Solitaire offshoot of truly extraordinary one-offs. Because why have just a Bugatti as a billionaire, when you could have a Bugatti like no one else’s?
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