Revered luxury supercar company Bugatti previously announced that its new W16 Mistral would be the last Bugatti automobile to be powered solely by gasoline. While that remains true, the company actually had one more gas-powered car in the garage that it recently sold for $10.7 million, the most ever paid for a new car at auction.
It's a one-of-a-kind Bugatti Chiron Profilée, which was developed in late 2020, as a high-powered variant of its famous Chiron line, which has always been limited to 500 models. Unfortunately, the company realized that it was going to hit that 500 mark before the Profilée would be ready for production, but the decision was made to complete the single development model that Bugatti engineers were working on anyway and put the car up for auction.
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That turned out to be a wise decision, since now an unnamed bidder has paid $10.7 million (including fees) for the truly one-of-a-kind automobile. Not only is that the most ever spent on a new car at auction, but significantly more than the estimated range of $4.5 million to $6 million that auction house RM Sotheby's had expected before the bidding commenced. The previous record was held by a Ferrari LaFerrari Aperta sold in 2017 for $9 million.
The Profilée was designed to blend the high performance of the company's Pur Sport with the style of the Chiron, and as such it's the fastest accelerating Chiron ever made, going from 0 to 62 miles per hour in 2.3 seconds. With a top speed of 236 miles per hour, it's also faster than the Pur Sport, but not quite the fastest of the Bugatti brand, with some Bugatti cars reportedly boasting top speeds of 300 miles per hour.
Only the buyer of the Bugatti Chiron Profilée knows if its high-performance capabilities will actually be put to work on the road, given that it's both the most expensive new car ever sold at auction and also the last of the Bugatti gas guzzlers. Of course, even as the last gas-powered Bugatti ever sold, it will not be the last to be delivered, since the company reportedly has backlogs going all the way through 2025.
