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Bugatti has used the exclusive 'The Quail' event at the Monterey Historic Car Week in California to unveil its first special edition of the mighty Chiron hypercar - the Divo.
The idea behind the Divo is to take the same monstrous 1,500hp W16 engine, but ally it to a chassis that's tuned more for cornering than for ultimate top speed.
"When I took up my position at Bugatti at the beginning of the year, I soon learnt that our customers and fans were waiting for a special vehicle which would tell a further story for the brand in addition to the Chiron," said Stephan Winkelmann, President of Bugatti Automobiles. "The Bugatti team was also very eager to implement a project like this."
"To date, a modern Bugatti has represented a perfect balance between high performance, straight-line dynamics and luxurious comfort. Within our possibilities, we have shifted the balance in the case of the Divo further towards lateral acceleration, agility and cornering," Winkelmann added. "The Divo is made for bends. The feedback from our customers was overwhelming. We showed the Divo to a small group of selected Chiron customers. All 40 cars were sold immediately - this was fantastic confirmation for the Bugatti team which had put so much dedication and passion into the project. The Divo is a further project intended to thrill people and the world. Our fans are very important to us."
The Divo is named after Albert Divo, a French racing driver who was a two-time winner of the famous Targa Florio race on the mountainous roads of Sicily with Bugatti in the late 1920s.
It takes the basic structure of the Chiron and strips 35kg from it. Not a lot, perhaps, for a car that weighs as much as this, but it also has 90kg of extra downforce, thanks to a highly modified aerodynamic package.
While Bugatti says that the top speed has been limited to a mere 380km/h, the car's maximum lateral acceleration (a measure of how much grip it can generate in a corner) has risen to 1.6g.
Bugatti has basically knocked through some holes in the Divo's nose, reducing the front cross section, and creating an air-curtain effect which better feeds the car's various wings and aero surfaces.
There's a wider front spoiler, a huge NACA duct in the roof, and a whopping spoiler on the back, that measures a full 1.83 metres across. There are also extra cooling ducts at the front to keep the brakes and tyres from overheating.
The Divo doesn't have the Chiron's Top Speed mode, but it does have steering and suspension which are said to be much sharper, and is a claimed eight seconds faster around the famed Nardo high-speed circuit in the south of Italy.
The price? A cool €5-million. Before tax.