Bugatti could soon make a step downmarket and possibly away from hyper-performance to take on ultra-luxury manufacturers like Rolls-Royce in the SUV segment, according to president Stephan Winkelmann.
In an interview with Automotive News Europe at the Paris motor show, Winkelmann said that the company was considering a range of chassis and engine options for an SUV that fits with its billionaire target audience.
But any potential SUV would be unlikely to be powered by the company's monstrous W16 quad turbo engine, however, with Winkelmann having previously confirmed that the Volkswagen-owned French manufacturer is also investigating hybrid drivetrains, which would be the most likely option to power an SUV."The brand is ready for more," Winkelmann told Automotive News Europe. "The W-16 engine is at the core of the brand today, but it won't remain the heart forever."
Winkelmann was previously the head of Lamborghini, that recently launched its own SUV - the Urus - that was conceived and developed during his time in charge.The Urus sits on the same underpinnings as other high-end VW Group SUVs, such as the Porsche Cayenne and Bentley Bentayga, as well as the Volkswagen Touareg and Audi Q7.
Given that Bugatti makes low volume hypercars that are still largely hand assembled, any potential SUV would either be massively high-priced and extremely limited or - possibly more likely, given Winkelmann's strategy at Lamborghini - share the same underpinnings with Bugatti's hybrid drivetrain powering it.
Winkelmann has shown that he is willing to carry on with successful Lamborghini strategies at Bugatti, with the recent launch of the exclusive Divo hypercar being a sign of that.The Divo is limited to just 40 units (all were pre-sold by invitation only) and is essentially a track-focussed, heavily modified version of the Chiron, echoing similar high-priced, limited-run Lamborghinis based on existing models that materialised under Winkelmann watch.
While the hypercar market that Bugatti currently plays in is largely insulated from the vagaries of the mainstream car market - and the company's products compete more with private jets and luxury apartments for its customer's money - the manufacturer has always been regarded as a symbol of the VW Group's excesses in engineering spending - largely just to prove a point - under the previous management structure.
Any expansion at Bugatti - including the introduction of an SUV - must be economically viable to go ahead, Winkelmann told Automotive News Europe, making the likelihood of a Bugatti SUV being similar in concept and execution to the Urus, albeit still more exclusive, the most likely outcome.
"We need to come up with a convincing pitch to our shareholders that justifies the related investment" he said.
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