We’d not recommend it on the move, but you can now look straight up in the Bugatti Chiron, thanks to a new “Sky View” option on the 1479bhp hypercar.
There’s not a lot of mystery to how it works - ostensibly, it’s a pair of glass panels installed in the roof either side of the Chiron’s dramatic central spine, each measuring 65cm by 44cm, adding just a little more sunlight to the car’s sumptuous cabin.
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In a car designed to top 250mph you’d imagine it’s a more involved process than taking a Dremel to the roof and dropping in a pop-out panel, and true to form Bugatti says the Sky View option keeps wind noise to a minimum, filters out UVA and UVB light and reflects heat.
The glass panels actually enhance the stiffness of the roof too, though Bugatti doesn’t divulge whether there’s a small weight increase, as you might expect. Crash safety is said to be unchanged and will hopefully remain untested.
Some taller customers may appreciate the quoted 2.7cm increase in headroom however, and in the deep silver paintwork with tan interior of the car depicted in the photographs, the Sky View panels add something of a vintage aircraft look to the Chiron, like the cockpit of a B29.
As an option, the rest of the Chiron remains unchanged: think eight litres, sixteen cylinders fed by a quartet of turbochargers, 1180lb ft of torque and both a carbonfibre structure and carbonfibre body panels. “The most extraordinary supercar the world has ever seen”, as Richard Meaden described it after his drive last year - you can read the full thing here.
The Chiron Sky View will make its public debut in the most appropriate (and suitably sunny) of places, California, at the Monterey Car Week taking place at the end of August.
