In this first edition of the Retrospect, we immediately climb one of the highest layers of car land. Exactly ten years ago, Bugatti showed the 16C Galibier, an eccentric fastback that would appear on the menu next to the Veyron.
The mighty Veyron has entered the history books as one of the mega-roman projects from a special period of the Volkswagen Group. Ferdinand Piëch was at the helm of the group and started a series of special adventures to give his company a higher profile. The Phaeton became the most expensive Volkswagen of all time, engines like the V10 and V12 TDI with blocks like the W8 and W12 were not even the most remarkable machines in the Volkswagen warehouse and with the Veyron, Volkswagen revived the illustrious Bugatti, the brand that after the EB 110 died and of which Volkswagen acquired the rights in 1998.
Veyron, launched in 2005, was a technical masterpiece in every respect. The obese and luxurious hypercar was assigned a 8.0 W16 of thick 1,000 hp, a machine equipped with four turbos that allowed the multi-million dollar GT to reach a top speed of 407 km / h. Superlative Veyron Super Sport eventually managed to hunt to a speed of 431 km / h. Bugatti was back on the map, and it tasted like more four years after the launch of the Veyron.
16C Galibier
Bugatti presented the 16C Galibier Concept in 2009, an apparently production-ready study model with which Bugatti showed itself from a completely different angle. The luxurious-looking and at least as luxuriously dressed show car got a version of the W16 screwed down to 800 hp, a machine with two superchargers instead of two turbochargers. Remarkably, the Galibier was not intended as a brother of the Veyron, but as a replacement for that extremist. On March 17, 2010, Techzle wrote an article about the Galibier in which we concluded that “this Galibier should not go into production. We are now ten years later. Where’s the 16C Galibier?
The Galibier should go into production in 2013, but that – unfortunately for the rich of the earth – never happened. This is somewhat remarkable, as product-specific information appeared more than once in the years after the concept car was introduced. A hybrid version of the production version would also be available. Noise came on the line in 2012. Wolfgang Schreiber, fresh at the time at Bugatti at the time, announced that the Galibier would not be on the road before 2015. The production version would also deviate strongly in design from the concept version shown in 2009. In 2013, the high word seemed: the Calibier would have been shot and Bugatti would rather spend his time fully developing a spiritual successor to the Veyron, a car we now know as Chiron, presented in 2016.
Handyman
There was more going on, and the 2011 announcement that the design of the Calibier Concept would be modified seems to be related to that. To Hagerty, none other than Bugatti’s design chief Achim Anscheidt said that Bugatti adjusted the design behind the scenes based on feedback from potential customers. The Galibier grew over 15 centimeters in height and grew no less than 1.5 meters. In addition, Bugatti listened carefully to the wishes of the Chinese clientele, which led to the intended second model getting a kinked stern. “Bugatti tried to make the Galibier a jack-of-all-trades, sacrificing the grace of the design,” Anscheidt told Hagerty. “The concept of a car that was to be positioned above the Rolls-Royce Phantom, which not only had to be luxurious and comfortable, but also capable of cornering quickly and efficiently, was doomed to fail.” None other than Piëch would have shot ‘project Galibier’ personally after seeing the revised version.
Although the Galibier is not there yet, Bugatti still seems to play with the idea of ​​a more practical minded model. What Bugatti intends to do remains shrouded in mystery. In 2018, CEO Stephan Winkelmann spoke out emphatically against the SUV concept by saying that such a model “does not do justice to Bugatti and its history.” Last year, however, the same Winkelmann again yelled that Bugatti would be in talks with Volkswagen about a potential second model for the brand, a car described as an electrically powered ‘GT or crossover’. Will there be a Galibier-esque after all? Never say never, but for now we can only wait and see.