Bugatti revealed the Destrier on August 6, 2026 — the third car under its Programme Solitaire commission tier and the first Solitaire based on the Bolide rather than the Chiron platform. It keeps the Bolide's 8.0-litre quad-turbo W16 and its full 1,600 PS output, but deletes every wing, vent and diffuser fin off the donor car to leave a lower, cleaner, coachbuilt shape over a track-car powertrain. Public debut at The Quail during Monterey Car Week on August 16.
What Bugatti has confirmed
- Engine: 8.0-litre quad-turbocharged W16, 1,600 PS (1,177 kW) — carried over unchanged from the Bolide
- Platform: Bolide carbon-fibre monocoque (not the Chiron, as we speculated in our August 1 teaser)
- Height: roughly 1 metre tall
- Wheels: 20-inch front, 21-inch rear
- Aero: every functional wing, vent, canard, splitter blade and rear diffuser fin from the Bolide has been removed
- Interior: the Bolide's carbon-fibre sheet-metal seats have been retained but wrapped in leather and Alcantara
- Programme: Bugatti Programme Solitaire, capped at two commissions per year
- Public debut: The Quail, Monterey Car Week, August 16, 2026
- Name meaning: Destrier is the medieval French word for the warhorse a knight rode into battle, jousting and tournaments
Bugatti has not published the customer name, the delivery date, or the commission price. Programme Solitaire commissions have historically been priced above €10 million each.
The Bolide is the interesting choice here
The first two Solitaire cars, the Brouillard (2025) and F.K.P. Hommage, were both built on the Chiron platform — road-registered coachbuilds of a road car. The Destrier is a Solitaire coachbuild of a track car. That's a first, and it changes what the exercise is doing.
The Bolide, as delivered, is Bugatti's most extreme W16 platform: 1,600 PS, no road registration, active aero, a fixed rear wing, canards at every corner, and cooling vents wherever a car body will allow one. Every one of those details is a functional response to the demands of a track-only 1,600-hp car. The Destrier removes them all, then leaves the drivetrain untouched.
Read straight, that reads like an unforced downgrade. Read another way, it's the point of the whole exercise: the Bolide's proportions and monocoque are beautiful, and the aero elements that make it fast are also what make it look like a race car. Strip the aero and you have a sculpture around a W16, which is what a Solitaire commission has always been about.
The car will not be legal on public roads, and Bugatti has not confirmed track homologation.
Where our August 1 teaser got it wrong
Our earlier article, Bugatti teases a third W16 Programme Solitaire one-off ahead of Monterey, said the third Solitaire would be built on the Chiron platform, in line with the Brouillard and F.K.P. Hommage. It isn't. The Destrier uses the Bolide's carbon-fibre tub, not the Chiron's. We were reading the visible design cues in the teaser video — the wide horseshoe grille and the X-shaped lighting elements from the Tourbillon and Bolide — as evidence the car sat on the same road platform as its Solitaire predecessors. The X-shaped lighting was pointing at the Bolide, not borrowing from it.
The teaser article has been left in place as a record of what was published at the time, but the platform detail is corrected here.
What Monterey adds
Programme Solitaire cars are commissioned privately, but they debut publicly at whichever event Bugatti believes will put them in front of the next customer. The Brouillard debuted at Villa d'Este 2025. The Destrier debuts at The Quail during Monterey Car Week 2026 on August 16, in the same week the Broad Arrow auction of the W16 Mistral is expected to clear $8-10 million. Bugatti is running the launch of a new W16 commission alongside the market-clearing of the previous generation, on the same peninsula, in the same seven-day window. That is not accidental scheduling.
The Tourbillon — Bugatti's next-generation V16 production car — is not part of the Monterey programme. Programme Solitaire is running on a separate track from the V16 model line, and Bugatti has confirmed the Chiron/Bolide-platform commissions will continue for as long as the W16 remains an economically viable engine.
The basics
| Bugatti Destrier | |
|---|---|
| Reveal date | August 6, 2026 |
| Public debut | The Quail, Monterey Car Week, August 16, 2026 |
| Engine | 8.0L quad-turbocharged W16 |
| Power | 1,600 PS (1,177 kW), unchanged from the Bolide |
| Platform | Bolide carbon-fibre monocoque |
| Aero | Bolide wings, vents and diffuser deleted |
| Height | ~1 metre |
| Wheels | 20-inch front, 21-inch rear |
| Interior | Carbon-fibre seats wrapped in leather + Alcantara |
| Programme | Bugatti Programme Solitaire (3rd commission) |
| Prior Solitaire cars | Brouillard (2025), F.K.P. Hommage |
| Homologation | Not road-legal; track homologation not confirmed |
| Price | Not published |
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Sources: Leaked: 2026 Bugatti Destrier Bespoke Programme Solitaire Hypercar Gets Revealed in All Its Glory (autoevolution); Bugatti Destrier revealed as the ultimate one-off W16 hypercar (evo); Bugatti Destrier Revealed as Stunning One-Off Based on the Bolide (zero2turbo); Bugatti Destrier is a one-off Bolide without any aero (Autonext); Bugatti unveils new 1-of-1 Destrier (Supercar Blondie); Bugatti Destrier press specs (NetCarShow). Photography: Bugatti.