Bugatti, one of the most extreme high-end super-luxe automakers on Earth, is introducing a new car this week called Solitaire. It’s fittingly named, as it will be the first of the brand’s new “ultra-exclusive program of one-of-one cars.” So forget assembly lines, we’re going back to coachbuilding for kings and princes.
There’s no indication that Bugatti’s existing lineup, which is also basically hand built, is being dissolved, but it looks like the French brand is going to start leaning a little harder into one-offs based on its announcement today.
This is not a random pivot. Bugatti’s been doing one-off treatments on its cars since its early days, and in fact, some of its most spectacular creations were the result of trying to outclass coachbuilders when the cottage industry for one-of-a-kind cars was thriving. The Type 57 SC Atlantic is an example of such a machine, dreamed up by Jean Bugatti to be art-on-wheels, as it’s still rightfully considered to this day.
As a middle-class road user myself, I find Bugatti’s proclamation of creating not a car but a “celebration of grace and elegance” a little eye-roll inducing. But as a lover of fine art and fanciful engineering, well, I can’t deny that I’m excited to see what Bugatti’s people will come up with.
Without the limitations of mass production, there’s a whole lot of room for designers and tuners to go hog wild.
A return to coachbuilding (the classy way to describe one-off custom cars) makes sense for this moment in history, too, as we seem to be hurtling back towards guilded-age economics with a small group of people amassing so much money that a regular base-model Bugatti just isn’t going to cut it. Or, looking at it another way, there might soon be more of a market for a single $5,000,000 car than 10 $500,000 ones.
We’ll see what exactly Bugatti’s cooking up, and get more details on the Solitaire, this Thursday, August 7.
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