This bit of consumer advice will apply to almost nobody. However, if you fancy yourself a connoisseur of obscure automotive trivia, then boy do we have something interesting for you. Bugatti will build just 60 Chiron Pur Sports for the entire world, and we bet a gazillion dollars that not one buyer gives a rip about US EPA fuel mileage ratings. Still, it’s fun to know just how bad it really is.
And it is really, really bad. Combined, the Pur Sport logs a full 10 miles per gallon. Cruising down the highway you can expect 13 mpg, which actually is about the same as you’d get from a late 1990s Dodge Durango. In town, however, that quad-turbocharged 16-cylinder engine drinks dead dinosaurs like its Kool-Aid, consuming fuel to the tune of 8 mpg. Hey, 1,500 horsepower under your right foot comes at a cost, and not just the $3.3 million Bugatti will get for each model sold. The EPA says Pur Sport drivers will likely spend $15,000 more than the average motorist in fuel over a five-year period. Sounds like a deal breaker to us.
Of course, the Pur Sport wasn’t designed to cruise around town or jaunt across the country on a road trip. For that, you’d want the standard Chiron which achieves one additional mpg in all three categories. No, the Pur Sport is Bugatti’s take on a track-day machine – road legal but fitted with stiffer suspension, retuned aerodynamics, a remapped transmission, and a galaxy-class rear wing for shoving its sticky Michelins into the pavement.
As such, it doesn’t slide through the air quite as efficiently as the standard Chiron, and well, we clearly see that reflected in its fuel economy rating. We also see it in the Pur Sport’s top speed which is down to just 218 mph. Travesty! A Bugatti isn’t a real Bugatti unless it can exceed 250 mph. Honestly, with an embarrassing top speed and terrible fuel mileage, who would want one of these things?
Somehow, we doubt any of this will dissuade affluent buyers from snatching up all 60 examples.