Hear the V16 Bugatti Tourbillon Sing Like Nothing Else

No, it’s not surprising that a multi-million-dollar hypercar should have a great exhaust note. But, in this era of big turbos and electrification, high-performance cars don’t quite sound like they used to. It’s for that reason that getting a chance to hear the new Bugatti Tourbillon rev its V16 so clearly is something all enthusiasts should stop and appreciate.

Bugatti CEO Mate Rimac posted a video to Instagram, showing a camouflage-clad Tourbillon revving its massive new engine and setting off. Unfortunately, you don’t get to hear it reach its 9,000-rpm redline, as it still has a soft rev limiter. But Rimac is hopeful they can remove the limiter for idle revving on the production car. All that said, the Tourbillon’s V16 still sounds sensational. It’s bassy and muscular at the low end but growls and gets sharper as the revs rise.

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A post shared by Mate Rimac (@materimac)

We’re still just happy it exists in the first place. Up until now, Bugatti had been using the same engine for nearly 20 years: an 8.0-liter, quad-turbocharged W16. It’s a storied power plant, a masterpiece of engineering dreamed up by former VW Group boss Ferdinand Piech. The W16 produced over 1,600 horsepower in its most powerful configuration and made a noise you’d never mistake for any other motor’s.

But monster engines are fading from existence. Lamborghini is downsizing from a V10 to a twin-turbocharged V8 (still an epic-sounding one, though), Ferrari added a hybrid V6 to its lineup, and even Aston Martin has admitted that its V12 won’t be around for too much longer. The fact Bugatti not only retained its signature 16 cylinders but did so by dropping the turbochargers and adding displacement, in this regulatory environment, is remarkable.

This new 8.3-liter cross-plane-crank V16 is built by Cosworth and could be one of the famed engine maker’s most impressive achievements yet. Not only can it rev to 9,000 rpm, but it makes 986 horsepower on its own, without the use of turbos. Throw in the Tourbillon’s three electric motors, and the total system output is 1,775 horsepower. The specs alone are impressive, but you gain a whole new appreciation for what this powertrain is capable of when you hear its revs rise and fall so quickly—an impressive feat for a huge engine with 16 pistons, on a crankshaft that’s almost a meter long!

I can’t wait to hear this thing at full chat and hit redline at full throttle. Ever since Bugatti was reborn under the Volkswagen Group, it’s rewritten the performance books with each new car. It’s only right to expect the Tourbillon to do the same, and sound incredible in the process.

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