REDESIGNING TRADITION (Auto&Design n.216)
Bugatti’s Vision Gran Turismo was created for the successful GT6 racing game by Sony Polyphony and debuted as a full-size, working prototype at the 2015 Frankfurt motor show. Stripped of excessive luxury and designed to race, the Vision Gran Turismo was the result of engineering expertise and extensive aerodynamic research, which yielded an impressive function driven design containing Bugatti’s four key DNA elements.
“We thought about how to introduce this car, the first signal,” says Bugatti head of design Achim Anscheidt. “We always wanted to go racing with our product or do special customer projects in that direction and we never had a chance to. So we linked the two things together and [created something] ultra authentic.” Having spent some time with Kazunori Yamauchi (CEO of Polyphony Digital) the Bugatti design team went to work.
The Vision Gran Turismo didn’t have to adhere to any regulations in the virtual world for which it was created, says Anscheidt. This allowed the design team to come up with creative solutions that went above and beyond what they observed on LMP1 cars and Le Mans cars. The interior, by Etienne Salomé, is also a vision for things to come from Bugatti. “There’s a geometric indication that leans towards the Chiron’s overall architecture,” says Anscheidt.
In the single seat Vision it is decidedly more performance oriented. The IP, inspired by the Bugatti 57 Atlantic and the current wing shape of the Veyron, was made even more radical with the inclusion of new technologies, such as curved OLED display screen for external cameras that allow for a 270-degree view around the car day or night. Though the Vision Gran Turismo is intended to live exclusively in the virtual world, it was a chance for Bugatti’s design team to work on a dream they’ve long had, and a fitting preview of the next chapter in the brand’s storied history.
