When the Bugatti Chiron Sport rubs shoulders with the Rafale

When Bugatti pits its Chiron against the flagship of French aviation, the legendary Rafale, it turns out to be an exhilarating race. Discover the winner of this high-flying duel!

From time immemorial, people have always wanted to go faster and always further, and have never ceased to design ever faster machines. And when it comes to extreme performance, it’s impossible not to mention Bugatti, which has been trying for years to push the limits of speed. The Molsheim firm has indeed chained records over the past decades, with the latest set at over 490 km / h. And what happens when you design the best performing cars in the world? We race, of course, to measure our creations against other equally extreme machines. How about a plane? In reality, the idea of pitting a car against an aircraft is not really a great novelty, and we remember in particular the epic race between a Tesla Model S and a Qantas airline Boeing 737. But this time, Bugatti wanted to go even further, and decided to pay tribute to all the French know-how in aeronautics.

It is on the naval air base of the Navy in Landivisiau that Bugatti wanted to organize this high-flying duel, pitting his Chiron against another monument of tricolor engineering, the Rafale. And for the occasion, the manufacturer has chosen a very special model, namely the special series The Legends of Heaven, limited to only twenty copies through fashion and paying tribute to French aviation. Because you may not have known it, but the history of Bugatti is in fact closely linked to this field, while many pilots of the brand who have raced in competition have also been at the controls of Army planes. French Air. Among them, let us quote among others Rolland Garros or Albert Divo, who moreover gave his name to the eponymous model. Suffice to say that between the brand and aviation, it is a story that lasts and continues to exist for more than 110 years, while Ettore Bugatti, the founder of the brand has also designed many aircraft engines. At the beginning of the 20th Century.

An epic race

So here are the two machines lined up on the runway, ready to take off, in every sense of the word. At the wheel of the Chiron Sport, Pierre-Henri Raphanel, official driver of the brand, who should remember this extraordinary experience for a long time. He declares in fact that ” for the first few hundred meters I was in the lead in front of the Rafale, but after a few hundred meters it was in the air about 20 meters above and beside me. An incredible and superb vision “. Suffice to say that the sensations had to be there, even for a seasoned pilot like the latter, while he emphasizes that “ the Chiron Sport has incredible acceleration power, very close to that of the Rafale. In the Bugatti, we feel the same sensations as in the jet, even under braking “. But despite the supercar’s insane acceleration, with a 0 to 100 km / h shot in 2.4 seconds and a top speed exceeding 420 km / h, the Gust finally took the lead, taking off at 260 km / h after only 450 meters.

As a reminder, the Bugatti Chiron Les legendes du ciel is powered by a W16 8.0 liters four-turbo developing no less than 1,500 horsepower for a torque of 1,600 Nm.