Wolfgang Duerheimer, head of Volkswagen’s Bugatti marque, admitted that he “can’t get the idea for a four-door limousine out of my head,” in an interview at the Geneva Motor Show. This is great news for all the billionaires out there looking into tow hitches and seating-trailers for their Chirons.
Duerheimer suggested that the four-door Bugatti would be one of the options available for Bugatti’s next project, and it’s hardly the first time Bugatti has toyed with the idea of a large, luxurious sedan.
Bugatti’s most recent work on a four-door car (actually here, it’s a five-door; it’s a hatchback) was their Galiber concept car, shown in 2009. The Galiber was sort of like if you took a Panamera to the shop that’s restoring God’s own sweet-ass AMC Hornet Wagon and told them just to remake the car, but bigger and better in every way.
Bugatti has a bit of history producing opulent family cars, like the extremely limited-production (six!) Royale between 1927 and 1933. The idea of a Bugatti family car is pretty compelling, because it has the potential to remove my biggest complaint about Bugatti’s current cars: nobody ever really drives them.
A family car is a very different thing than a 260 MPH-capable but almost never utilized wealth marker. A family car will actually get used, since rich people and their families do like to go places. This means that the undoubtedly exquisite engineering and lavish design and appointments will be for an actual purpose, and Bugatti can look forward to producing a Supercar who’s superiority will actually matter.
I hope they do this. I don’t even care if it’s only going to be used by insufferable moneybags with weird taste and sullen demeanors, because I think the innovations they may come up with for a car like this are far more likely to one day find their way into mainstream cars than the innovations they make to get a heavy-ass two-seater to go speeds no one can ever go, outside of the racetracks no one ever takes them on.
Will these have flexible interior seating arrangements? Incredible bodywork? In-seat bidets? The sky’s the limit here; I hope Bugatti takes advantage of this and really pushes some boundaries.
Of course, this will be a very different kind of car for Bugatti to build – higher volumes (though by no means large volumes), and an expectation of actual utility. Modern Bugatti hasn’t ever built anything like that, though VW certainly can help. Oh, and just in case you’re worried about where this could all lead, relax: Bugatti has confirmed they’re never going to build a stupid SUV like some fancy-ass companies I could mention.
Contact the author at jason@jalopnik.com.