Bugatti teases a third W16 Programme Solitaire one-off ahead of Monterey

Bugatti released a short teaser video on August 1, 2026 confirming a third one-off under its Programme Solitaire commission tier. The car uses the brand's 8.0-litre quad-turbo W16 and will make its public debut at The Quail during Monterey Car Week 2026. It is the third Solitaire commission after the Brouillard and FKP Hommage, and it is built on the Chiron platform rather than the new V16 Tourbillon architecture.

What Bugatti has actually confirmed

• Engine: 8.0-litre quad-turbocharged W16, the same architecture that powered the Veyron, Chiron, Divo, Centodieci, and W16 Mistral
• Platform: Chiron
• Design language: references to the Tourbillon (wide horseshoe grille) and the Bolide (X-shaped lighting signatures)
• Public debut: The Quail, Monterey Car Week 2026
• Programme: Bugatti Programme Solitaire, capped at two commissions per year

Bugatti has not published the customer name, the final specification, the intended output figure, or the delivery date.

Why a W16 in 2026

The Tourbillon replaced the W16 formula with a naturally-aspirated 8.3-litre V16 plus three electric motors. That's the platform Bugatti's new-car business now runs on. Programme Solitaire runs on the Chiron platform because that platform is where the W16 lives, and because the customers who commission a Solitaire car are asking for the last W16 Bugattis rather than the first V16 ones. The two tracks are separate on purpose.

The first Solitaire, the Brouillard, was revealed in 2025 as a W16 commission for a single customer. The second, FKP Hommage, followed. This third car is the same idea again: a Chiron-platform W16, styled to the customer's brief, produced in an audience of one.

The gallery below shows the W16 Bugattis this commission joins: the Chiron itself, the W16 Mistral roadster, the Divo track-focused special, the Centodieci EB110 tribute, La Voiture Noire, and the Bolide track car. Every one of them uses the same 8.0-litre quad-turbo W16 that will sit under the third Solitaire.

What Monterey Car Week signals

The Quail Motorsports Gathering runs on August 15, 2026, and is the highest-value single day of the Monterey week. Bugatti chose it as the reveal venue for the same reason Ferrari chose Goodwood for the Amalfi and the 296 Speciale A this summer: the buyer for the next commission is standing on that lawn. Programme Solitaire only exists because there are enough of those buyers to sustain two W16 one-offs a year, and Monterey is where the next one gets briefed.

The parallel Bugatti announcement worth watching is the W16 Mistral headed to Broad Arrow's Quail auction the same weekend, estimated at $8-10 million. One W16 leaving a private garage, one W16 arriving in a private garage, in the same 72-hour window on the same peninsula. That is not a coincidence.

Our take

The interesting sentence is buried in the platform confirmation. The Tourbillon is Bugatti's product story. The Solitaire is Bugatti's customer story. Both matter, and Bugatti is running them in parallel because the W16 has a residual value in the commission market that the V16 will need years to earn. Every W16 one-off between now and the end of the Chiron platform is Bugatti banking that residual value while the Tourbillon builds its own.

The Monterey debut will show the exterior. What it will not show is the price, which for a Solitaire commission is a private number between Molsheim and one buyer. Add a zero to the last one you heard and you will not be far off.

See how the last W16 Bugatti and the first V16 Bugatti actually compare on our Bugatti Tourbillon vs W16 Mistral breakdown, or where they land against the current hypercar field on our fastest cars list.

The basics

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Sources: Bugatti teases new W16 Solitaire One-Off ahead of Pebble Beach (The Supercar Blog); Bugatti Teases Another W16 One-Off Before The V16 Era Takes Over (Autoblog); Bugatti Teases New Programme Solitaire One-Off (duPont Registry). Photography: Bugatti.