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On Ice With the 1,800-HP Bugatti Tourbillon

The Arctic has a way of exposing weakness. At -30 degrees Celsius, with polished ice stretching to the horizon and the sun barely clawing its way above the Swedish treeline, there’s nowhere for engineering shortcuts to hide. Which is exactly why Bugatti hauled its all-new Bugatti Tourbillon prototypes to the frozen proving grounds of Arjeplog.

If the Chiron represented the peak of brute-force excess, the Tourbillon feels like Bugatti attempting something more sophisticated: building a hypercar that doesn’t merely overwhelm physics, but negotiates with it. The company calls this a “new era,” and for once, the marketing department may not be exaggerating.

At the center of the Tourbillon sits one of the most audacious powertrains ever fitted to a road car: a naturally aspirated V16 paired with three electric motors, producing a combined 1,800 horsepower. In an era increasingly defined by turbochargers and silent EVs, the decision to build a screaming atmospheric sixteen-cylinder engine borders on rebellion.

But in northern Sweden, outright horsepower matters less than what the car does with it.

That’s the uncomfortable truth of winter validation. Ice doesn’t care about Nürburgring lap times or top-speed records. On low-grip surfaces, every flaw in calibration becomes immediately obvious. The Tourbillon’s all-wheel-drive system, torque vectoring, regenerative braking, ABS, and electronic stability systems are forced to work together under conditions where grip can disappear in an instant.

And that’s precisely the point.

“We are here to test and develop the Tourbillon in extreme conditions,” explained Miroslav Zrnčević, Bugatti Rimac’s chief development driver. “HVAC, ABS, ESC systems, traction control, and vehicle dynamics in general.”

That may sound routine, but nothing about validating a 1,800-hp hypercar on frozen lakes is routine. Particularly when Bugatti insists the car must behave with the same composure in a blizzard as it would storming down an unrestricted autobahn.

Modern hypercars often chase performance through sheer computational force, burying drivers beneath layers of electronics. The Tourbillon appears to be chasing something subtler: preserving emotional connection while allowing technology to quietly save the day underneath.

That balancing act becomes clearest in the car’s driving modes. Comfort mode prioritizes stability and confidence, taming the V16 hybrid monster into something surprisingly approachable. Sport loosens the leash, shifting the balance toward neutrality and allowing the chassis to rotate more freely. Then comes Track mode, where torque migrates rearward and the car begins to behave less like an all-wheel-drive missile and more like an oversized rally weapon with impeccable tailoring.

Bugatti says the systems remain harmonious even as the car permits greater slip angles and more aggressive responses. Translation: the Tourbillon wants to entertain you, not merely intimidate you.

That matters because Bugatti’s biggest challenge today isn’t building speed. Rimac can do speed. Koenigsegg can do speed. Even heavily electrified luxury sedans now produce absurd acceleration figures. The real challenge is building character in an age where performance is becoming increasingly digitized.

And character is exactly what the Tourbillon seems determined to preserve.

The engineering effort behind that goal borders on obsessive. Bugatti’s winter campaign lasted four weeks, with teams working day and night as temperatures fluctuated and surfaces transformed from polished ice to slush to dry asphalt. The changing conditions allowed engineers to test “MU-jumps,” moments where the car transitions suddenly between dramatically different levels of grip mid-corner or under braking.

For a machine combining regenerative braking with traditional hydraulic systems through brake-by-wire technology, those transitions are critical. The brake pedal can’t feel artificial or unpredictable. In a Bugatti, it has to feel natural, even while an orchestra of computers works invisibly beneath the surface.

There’s also something wonderfully old-school about the entire exercise. While much of the automotive industry leans heavily on simulation, Bugatti still sends engineers into the Arctic wilderness to chase perfection the hard way. Real ice. Real cold. Real risk.

And somewhere in that frozen silence — between the aurora overhead, reindeer crossing the proving grounds, and the howl of a naturally aspirated V16 echoing across a Swedish lake — the Tourbillon begins to make sense.

Because this car isn’t simply replacing the Chiron. It’s attempting to answer a larger question: what should a hypercar feel like in the electrified future?

Bugatti’s answer, at least for now, is reassuringly irrational. A sixteen-cylinder engine. Three electric motors. Enough computing power to rewrite the laws of traction. And an engineering team stubborn enough to spend sleepless Arctic nights making sure all of it feels utterly seamless from behind the wheel.

If that sounds excessive, well, that’s because it is.

And a Bugatti should never be anything less.

Source: Bugatti

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Manthey-Tuned Porsche 911 GT2 RS Dominates Road Atlanta

Nearly a decade after it first detonated onto the supercar scene, the Porsche 911 GT2 RS is still humiliating newer machinery—and now it has another lap record to prove it.

At Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta, a Manthey-equipped GT2 RS clocked a blistering 1:22.649 lap, edging the previous production-car benchmark by two-tenths of a second. That may sound like a margin small enough to lose in pit lane chatter, but around Road Atlanta—a circuit known for its fast elevation changes and commitment-testing corners—it’s a meaningful statement. Especially considering the car in question traces its roots back to 2017.

The weapon of choice was no ordinary GT2 RS. Fitted with the factory-approved Manthey Performance Kit and riding on road-legal Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 R N0 tires, the twin-turbocharged rear-engine monster found an entirely new level of capability. Compared with the standard GT2 RS that lapped the same circuit in 2019 on identical-spec rubber, the upgraded car carved a staggering 2.2 seconds from its previous effort.

Behind the wheel for all three record attempts was Porsche ambassador and former factory ace Jörg Bergmeister, who knows a fast 911 better than most people know their own driveway. According to Bergmeister, the GT2 RS still delivers an experience that feels anything but dated.

“Even almost 10 years after its introduction, the power delivery of the twin-turbo flat-six engine is still thrilling,” he said. And while the engine remains the headline act, the real magic appears to come from the Manthey-developed chassis and aero package. Increased downforce and suspension revisions allowed Bergmeister to brake deeper into corners and get back on throttle earlier, transforming an already ferocious 911 into something even sharper.

But Porsche didn’t stop there.

The newer Porsche 911 GT3 RS with Manthey Kit also turned Road Atlanta into its personal playground, posting a 1:23.932 lap time and claiming the title of fastest naturally aspirated production car ever to circle the circuit. That’s remarkable not because the GT3 RS is quick—we already knew that—but because it managed the feat without turbochargers, hybrid assistance, or electrification. Just a screaming flat-six, a massive rear wing, and enough aerodynamic grip to embarrass race cars.

Bergmeister described the car’s aero performance in almost disbelieving terms. With up to 1,000 kilograms of downforce available, the GT3 RS corners with the kind of violence normally reserved for GT-class competition machinery. The suspension, meanwhile, absorbs curbing without upsetting the chassis, helping drivers exploit every ounce of performance.

And then there’s the newest arrival: the Porsche 911 GT3 fitted with the Manthey Kit. While it may sit lower in the 911 hierarchy, it still managed to stop the clock at 1:24.639—an eye-opening 1.8 seconds quicker than the previous-generation GT3’s earlier benchmark.

What these laps ultimately demonstrate is that Porsche’s obsession with incremental engineering remains unmatched. The Manthey packages don’t reinvent these cars; they refine them with surgical precision. More grip here, more aero stability there, and suddenly already legendary track weapons become even more devastating.

In an era increasingly dominated by electrified hypercars chasing headline power figures, Porsche is proving there’s still immense performance left to unlock from a rear-engined sports car with a flat-six engine and a stopwatch.

Source: Porsche

News

Rare Shades 7 Turns Queens Into Porsche’s Rolling Color Archive

There are concours events built around horsepower, rarity, and seven-figure auction values. Then there’s Rare Shades, the annual gathering from 000 Magazine that treats color itself as the headline act. And somehow, that makes it feel even more obsessive—in the best possible Porsche way.

What began eight years ago as an ambitious niche concept from 000 Magazine co-founder Alex Palevsky has evolved into one of the most visually arresting celebrations of the Porsche universe anywhere in the world. Its seventh edition, staged this spring inside Queens’ cavernous Wildflower Studios, proved that Porsche enthusiasm no longer revolves solely around lap times and heritage badges. Increasingly, it revolves around self-expression.

And paint.

A lot of paint.

The latest Rare Shades transformed the East River waterfront into what essentially felt like a live-action Porsche color chart exploded into three dimensions. Inside the immense gallery-like halls of Wildflower Studios—a creative complex founded by Robert De Niro, Raphael De Niro, and developer Adam Gordon—rows of Stuttgart machinery sat under carefully controlled lighting like rolling pieces of industrial art. The setting was less traditional car show and more modern design exhibition, which, frankly, suited the premise perfectly.

Because Rare Shades isn’t really about cars in the conventional sense. It’s about what happens when enthusiasts stop viewing a 911 as transportation and start viewing it as a canvas.

That philosophy was visible everywhere. Nearly 100 paint colors appeared across the display field, ranging from iconic heritage tones to deeply obscure Paint-to-Sample experiments that sounded more like modern art installations than factory finishes. More than 20 shades of blue were represented. Sixteen greens appeared under the studio lights. Pinks and purples occupied their own strange and wonderful corner of the spectrum.

Some of the standouts bordered on mythical. Urbanbamboo Chromaflair shimmered with the sort of surreal depth usually reserved for concept cars and custom guitars. Moonstone—known in Germany as Flieder—delivered the kind of soft, washed-out Seventies violet that somehow feels both nostalgic and wildly contemporary. And Jadegreen, first made famous on the 1973 IROC-spec 911 Carrera RSR piloted by racing legend A. J. Foyt, looked every bit as rebellious today as it must have half a century ago.

The event’s underlying message became impossible to miss: Porsche’s history isn’t just written in engineering milestones. It’s written in pigment.

That idea was reinforced by 000 Magazine Editor-in-Chief Pete Stout, who pointed to the late 1960s and early ’70s as the high-water mark for Porsche experimentation. During that period, buyers could choose from sprawling lists of standard and optional colors that mirrored broader cultural shifts happening in fashion, art, and industrial design. The cars became snapshots of their era.

Then, inevitably, restraint took over.

For a while, conservative silvers, blacks, and dark blues dominated dealership lots. But Porsche’s modern Paint-to-Sample resurgence has reopened the floodgates for individuality, and Rare Shades exists as both celebration and proof of concept. In today’s increasingly digital, algorithmically filtered world, color has become a surprisingly personal statement again.

And nowhere was that more obvious than in 000 Magazine’s ongoing collaboration with Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur and the Sonderwunsch division. Displayed prominently were several low-volume, highly curated models developed alongside 000, including specially commissioned versions of the 718 Spyder, 911 Turbo S, and the US-market-only 718 Spyder RS.

Finished in hues like Darkseablue, Brewstergreen, Albertblue, and stark contrast White, the cars demonstrated something Porsche understands better than almost any manufacturer: exclusivity doesn’t always require more horsepower. Sometimes it just requires restraint, confidence, and the willingness to approve a daring paint code.

But Rare Shades 7’s greatest success wasn’t the machinery itself. It was the crowd surrounding it.

Unlike the occasionally stuffy atmosphere that can plague high-end collector events, Rare Shades drew a remarkably young and stylistically diverse audience. Longtime air-cooled obsessives mingled with first-time attendees who may have arrived more interested in aesthetics and design culture than Nürburgring lap records. And somehow, the event made those groups feel equally welcome.

That inclusivity is what gives Rare Shades its identity. Color is subjective. Nobody can really be wrong about it. One person’s perfect specification is another’s visual catastrophe, and that tension fuels conversation in a way horsepower figures never could.

In an enthusiast world increasingly dominated by resale values and social-media flex culture, Rare Shades feels refreshingly human. It reminds you that the emotional side of car culture still matters—that sometimes the strongest connection between a person and a machine can be something as simple as the exact shade of green they fell in love with as a kid.

And for one spring afternoon in Queens, Porsche’s rainbow-colored universe felt bigger, younger, and more alive than ever.

Source: Porsche