Bugatti has released a new episode documenting the Tourbillon hypercar’s journey to production, and this one is worth a watch with your headphones on. The episode is titled Sound of a New Era Part 1, which means that this is just a taste of the aural excitement the Tourbillon’s Cosworth-developed 8.3-liter naturally aspirated V16 will convey. The short video focuses on the challenges of keeping the Tourbillon legal, making it sound good without being completely alien alongside a W16-powered Bugatti, and ensuring it can cruise with the best grand tourers in the world.
But just as interesting is watching the Tourbillon get thrown around, powersliding its way through corners, doing donuts, and just being a lot more fun than its imposing size suggests, spitting blue flames as it does so.
Bugatti Tourbillon V16 Sounds Sophisticated Yet Exciting
Bugatti’s Head of NVH & Acoustics, Romain Volatier, readily concedes that Bugattis have never sounded particularly sharp. “Bugatti, from a sound perspective, has never had a very clean-sounding engine,” said Volatier. “It has always been a little bit dirty and raw, so we decided to keep that as one of the key points of the sound.” Normally, I struggle to unpack what PR-groomed executives are trying to say, but this time is different. The video does convey a sense of guttural, big-displacement rawness; it’s reminiscent of the almost agricultural sound of the 8.0-liter quad-turbocharged W16. That said, the V16’s exhaust note has also got a sliver of Italian exoticism, as demonstrated when it revs in neutral. Importantly, there are no fake sounds being pumped into the cabin, as Bugatti wants drivers to feel directly, authentically connected to the throttle and powertrain, thus inspiring confidence.
Achieving a smooth cruising note, a visceral pitch at high revs, and still meeting noise limits (which are also impacted by tire wear and aero) was not easy, with Bugatti running thousands of simulations across both exhaust and air intake systems to find “the right balance between performance, refinement, and the distinctive rawness that is synonymous with a Bugatti engine.” The automaker says that when the windows are lowered slightly, the sounds experienced are even richer and multi-dimensional.
Bugatti Passes Tests With Flying Colors
For one noise homologation test, Bugatti’s engineers had to get the Tourbillon to create no more than 72 decibels of noise, averaged over multiple individual evaluations, including constant-speed tests and accelerated runs. As mentioned, the tires roar, and the Tourbillon’s body, which includes a large rear wing, also contributes to noise picked up by the microphones. Temperature also plays a role, and gusts of wind, which cannot be predicted, invalidate many runs. Fortunately, Bugatti says it passed all tests with flying colors, but there’s still more work to do, with development driver Paolo Magrone saying Molsheim is “still working on small refinements and little details.” Presumably, we’ll learn more about the sound in the next video, but after three years of development, customer deliveries are almost ready to start, and the 9,000-rpm, 1,775-horsepower V16 hybrid powertrain will be unleashed to the (one-percenter) public.
