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“How would Bugatti continue to grow its Brand in the post-ICE-era and the post-pandemic world?"
Bugatti Le Souffle is an independent design study that was born out of these two questions. An electric Bugatti in the post-pandemic world. Where 0-60 in 3 seconds is no longer a matter of rarity and electric powertrains are all-across-the-board similarly capable, how would an electric Bugatti give its privileged owners an unparalleled experience? Would there be a new way to communicate the uncompromised ingenuity of the brand? Sat in a room while the world was locked down under the behemoth of the pandemic that hit us all in early 2020, I began to wonder.
Bugatti
Le Souffle
* This project was an independent case study. There was no collaboration between Move Lab and Bugatti Automobiles S.A.S.
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"As they notice the dark sky starting to blush, they realise they have been there for hours. Watching the sun slowly emerge above the horizon, they notice the gentle morning breeze filling up their lungs. “What a year it’s been!”
The rear area where the mighty W16 used to sit now packs dual-function air purifiers and the owners’ luggage for their grand touring experience. The second surprise of the car hides underneath it – a viewing lounge with a wine bar. The rear skin slides forward to become a canopy to cover them, it provides the perfect place to talk through the night, under the starry Cornish sky with endless ocean rolled out in front of the couple. Vintage style radiators – rustic British kitchen reference and mood lighting compliment the view with a sliding snack-counter that hides away for the couple to sit closer in the chill of the night.
I went back to the history of Bugatti and was able to find a fittingly interesting couple to this search, Victor Rothschild, a Cambridge-educated biologist, and MI5 agent during the war, and his wife Barbara, and of course their beloved Atlantic 57374. The gracefully voluptuous but powerfully muscular masterpiece painted in pale turquoise green spoke more of a romantic brunch at a cliff-top hotel in St. Ives than an adrenalin-filled drive around the Nürburgring. Could Bugatti expand toward the softer side of the clientele, knowing it’s always got the firepower? Giving the driver’s seat to our female demographics where the sheer acceleration doesn’t matter as much as the sense of intimacy emanated, no longer by its masterful CMF only but, perhaps by the demeanor which it exudes?
I began to imagine a modern-day 57374, albeit the common enemy our ‘husband’ is fighting this time is the pandemic that has been suffocating us all. I wanted this car to be an expression of the husband’s love for his wife without losing the sense of responsibility they carry, a symbolic and practical solution for the community - Noblesse Oblige, a Bugatti that cleanses the air, drawing the crowd for its beauty, keeping them there for the right reason. A Bugatti that takes the couple to a place where they can feel a breath of fresh air? A Bugatti that provides them a breathing space or rather, that literally is a ‘breathing’ space?
Another highlight is the copper brace – a structural element that adds to the bionic theme of the car. Inspired by female collarbones and the beautiful masses that surround them, striking volumes surround the wheel wells, shrink-wrapped over the low-slung bonnet – guided by the legacy spinal cord, which lights up and sterilises the air with the UVC rays in the car.
The exterior reinterpreted the female body’s hourglass shape in a modern way. The pinched intersections between four distinct volumes – cabin, front, rear, battery area - lead our eyes into the body-side aperture that sucks in the air. The gracefully dropping beltline stayed, here drawing a snappier C-line around the DLO. Like a bridal dress, the bottom of the car where the battery pack’s hidden is draped and floats slightly above the ground letting the air through the car.
"As they approached the car, he breathed into the key fob to see the car awaken. Slim yet serene headlights came on as it started to inhale and exhale. She is completely astonished by what’s happening in front of her eyes, the slow but decisive fluctuation of the bonnet and the body-side…The car’s alive!, she said in complete disbelief. He starts to chuckle…"
The Story
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