Photo: Sasha Selipanov on Behance
When the Volkswagen Group took up the challenge to design the fastest road-legal car in the world, it did it flawlessly with the now-classic Veyron. For the encore, Bugatti turned things up a notch with the Chiron, christened so after a racing driver.
When it was unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show, a helluva lot of people nodded their heads in awe before the extremely fast machine. But little did we know back then that the Bugatti Chiron wasn’t supposed to look like it does. As per CNET, the so-called “eight eyes” look is an afterthought.
In its earliest development, the front fascia of the Bugatti Chiron looked like what you can see in the featured image. That’s right, dear reader, the Chiron didn’t have headlights when it was just a design proposition. The “blind” Chiron is the work of Sasha Selipanov, head of exterior design at Bugatti.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Sasha had graduated the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA, prides himself on a degree in Transportation Design, worked as an intern at Mazda and Volkswagen, then joined the Volkswagen Design Center in Potsdam in 2005. A bit later, Sasha joined Lamborghini in 2010, making a contribution to the design of the Huracan, then he joined Bugatti in 2014. And yes, Sasha Selipanov is responsible for the Bugatti Vision GT concept car and the production-ready Bugatti Chiron.
Returning to the main subject of this article, CNET reports that the front fascia of the headlight-less proposition “wasn't to be, but the side and rear were just about bang on.” More than that, cameras instead of side mirrors didn't get the green light due to legislation problems. At the end of the day, the Chiron isn’t so much a revolution in design and go-faster credentials, but an evolution of the Veyron. An extremely pretty one of those, to be honest.
P.S.: Achim Anscheidt, director of design of the French automaker, is adamant that the Chiron looks best when painted silver. "Let the reflections do the talking.”
In its earliest development, the front fascia of the Bugatti Chiron looked like what you can see in the featured image. That’s right, dear reader, the Chiron didn’t have headlights when it was just a design proposition. The “blind” Chiron is the work of Sasha Selipanov, head of exterior design at Bugatti.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Sasha had graduated the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA, prides himself on a degree in Transportation Design, worked as an intern at Mazda and Volkswagen, then joined the Volkswagen Design Center in Potsdam in 2005. A bit later, Sasha joined Lamborghini in 2010, making a contribution to the design of the Huracan, then he joined Bugatti in 2014. And yes, Sasha Selipanov is responsible for the Bugatti Vision GT concept car and the production-ready Bugatti Chiron.
Returning to the main subject of this article, CNET reports that the front fascia of the headlight-less proposition “wasn't to be, but the side and rear were just about bang on.” More than that, cameras instead of side mirrors didn't get the green light due to legislation problems. At the end of the day, the Chiron isn’t so much a revolution in design and go-faster credentials, but an evolution of the Veyron. An extremely pretty one of those, to be honest.
P.S.: Achim Anscheidt, director of design of the French automaker, is adamant that the Chiron looks best when painted silver. "Let the reflections do the talking.”
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