As a kid, I was never good at receiving gifts. Even if it was something that I liked or wanted, if I hadn’t explicitly asked for it, I’d get upset. As an adult, that’s not really a problem anymore – I can just buy myself whatever I want, so when I get a gift from friends or family, I’m simply grateful and can enjoy it. A Bugatti customer recently took that sentiment to heart, commissioning herself a one-off Bugatti Chiron Super Sport for her 70th birthday. Now that’s self-care.
Well, technically her husband (a Bugatti owner himself) surprised her with the invitation to go to Molsheim to spec her car, but still. While being given a tour of the French headquarters by Jascha Straub, Bugatti’s lead designer for its Sur Mesure bespoke program, she walked by a scale model of a Type 57 SC Atlantic that prompted some vivid memories – and inspiration for her new Chiron. Says Bugatti:
Twenty years ago, the customer – a lifelong car lover – first saw a Type 57 SC Atlantic. “I remember the day like it was yesterday. I visited the Mullin Automotive Museum at Oxnard, and there it was, one of only three cars that still remain, on a pedestal all by itself. I fell in love with it from the very second I saw it,” she said.
“During her visit, when we passed a scale model of the Type 57 SC – the very first Atlantic and the exact one she had seen all those years ago – there was an immediate spark of recognition between us that this is the direction we should take. For years I have been idly dreaming of reinterpreting this icon, so I already had my own ideas of what I would do to honor the most elegant car ever designed. That meant that right away we could sit down and begin evolving the design, to realize her vision together,” said Straub.
Thus began the project for her Chiron Super Sport, which is called the ‘57 One of One’ and took more than a year to complete. Nailing the color was the first priority. Straub went to the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, where the Mullin’s blue Atlantic was on display in a temporary exhibit, so he could compare a color swatch that the Sur Mesure team created against the actual original car. When you look at the photos of the Chiron next to the Atlantic, the icy metallic blue paint matches perfectly.
The Chiron’s trademark horseshoe grille was given a chrome finish with vertical slats and a prominent central bar that apes the 57 SC’s grille. Because of how rigorous the the Chiron’s aerodynamics and cooling requirements are, the Sur Mesure designers had to work with Bugatti’s engineers to make sure the new grille could withstand the same 273-mph top speed. The wheels, C-line, center spine, hood accents and engine covers are also finished in chrome. Underneath the Chiron’s active rear wing is a hand-painted silhouette of the Atlantic with “57 One of One” lettering.
On the inside, the customer went with a subtle two-tone Gaucho brown leather color scheme, with bright aluminum accents and minimal use of carbon-fiber. The silhouette of the Atlantic is hand-stitched into the door panels in Lightning Blue, and the headrests are embroidered with the ‘Dancing Elephant’ that was a signature sculpture of Rembrandt Bugatti. Other special touches include a central C-line finished in body color, a center console badge reading “57 One of One,” and Rembrandt and Jean Bugatti’s signatures on the door sills.
After taking delivery of her Chiron earlier this year, the owner already took it on Bugatti’s US Grand Tour, which saw 20 Bugatti owners drive their cars 600 miles from Park City, Utah, to Aspen, Colorado, encountering snow and rain on the way. It’s awesome to see customers actually using their Bugattis – especially considering this 57 One of One likely cost its owner an additional seven figures on top of the Chiron Super Sport’s already astronomical $3,825,000 base price.
This isn’t the first time Bugatti has done a direct tribute to a 57 SC Atlantic, either. In 2019 Bugatti unveiled La Voiture Noire, a Chiron-based one-off with a completely bespoke body that was an homage to the fourth Atlantic, which was lost decades ago.
