Bugatti W16 Mistral: The Last W16 Ever Built Has Left Molsheim

The Bugatti W16 Mistral has reached the end of its production run, and with it, Bugatti has retired the engine that carried the marque for 21 years: from the Veyron’s 1,001 PS in 2005 to the Mistral’s 1,600 PS. On July 16, 2026, the marque’s newsroom confirmed that the 99th and final example of the W16 Mistral, the only open-top car ever built around the 8.0-liter quad-turbocharged W16, was complete. The symbolism was staged with intent: at the 2026 Silverstone Grand Prix, Bugatti delivered the one-of-one W16 Mistral World Record Car to its owner, in front of the very audience that treats Molsheim’s output as rolling art.

For collectors, this is not a product announcement. It is a punctuation mark. The W16 powered every modern Bugatti since the Veyron arrived in 2005 with a then-unthinkable 1,001 PS: 450 Veyrons, then 500 Chirons, and finally these 99 roadsters. Twenty-one years later, the engine exits in a car that holds a world speed record. This is the kind of ending heritage brands spend decades trying to manufacture, and rarely get to write on their own terms.

The End of the W16 Era at Molsheim

The Bugatti W16 Mistral is the final road-going car powered by Bugatti’s 8.0-liter, quad-turbocharged W16 engine, the 1,600 PS unit that defined the marque for two decades. According to Bugatti’s official newsroom, the last of 99 examples completed production at Molsheim in July 2026, ending a lineage that began with the Veyron 16.4 in 2005 and passed through the Chiron’s 500-unit run. First revealed at Monterey Car Week 2022, the Mistral was conceived explicitly as the W16’s farewell: a roadster named after the wind that sweeps the Rhône valley.

Production began in January 2025. Every build slot was spoken for before the reveal crowd in California had gone home. That detail matters more than any spec sheet: the Mistral was never sold. It was allocated.

What Makes the Bugatti W16 Mistral the Last of Its Kind?

Three facts separate the Bugatti W16 Mistral from every other limited-series hypercar of the decade. First, finality: Bugatti’s official newsroom confirms no W16 road car will ever be built again; the successor Tourbillon moves to a hybrid V16. Second, the record: in November 2024, a W16 Mistral driven by Andy Wallace reached 453.91 km/h (282 mph), making it the fastest open-top production car ever timed. Third, the number: 99 units, versus 500 Chirons and 450 Veyrons.

Scarcity, finality, and a verifiable record. In the collector-car market, that combination is structural, not sentimental. The roadster body is the detail insiders underline: Bugatti never built an open-top Chiron. The W16’s only roadster is also the W16’s goodbye.

The record itself deserves context. The W16 family already held the closed-top benchmark: in 2019, a Chiron Super Sport 300+ became the first production car past 300 mph, timed at 490.48 km/h with Andy Wallace driving. Five years later, the same driver took the Mistral to 453.91 km/h with no roof. The engine bows out holding both ends of the speed conversation, a symmetry Bugatti’s newsroom was careful to note. No successor inherits those numbers. They are retired with the engine.

How Much Does a Bugatti W16 Mistral Actually Cost?

The list answer: €5 million net per car, confirmed by Bugatti at the 2022 launch. The real answer: whatever the 100th buyer is willing to pay the 99th owner. All units sold out pre-production, so entry today happens exclusively on the secondary market, and the precedent there is unambiguous.

When Bugatti closed the coupé era with the one-off-spec Chiron Profilée, RM Sotheby’s hammered it at €9.79 million in February 2023, the most expensive new car ever sold at auction at the time. Bugatti’s own La Voiture Noire, a one-off W16 coupé, was announced at €11 million net in 2019. Final-of-line W16s do not trade near list. They trade near legend.

Why Did Bugatti Retire the W16 Engine?

Because the engine finished its argument. The W16 was created to make 1,000+ PS civilized, something no series-production engine had done when the Veyron launched with 1,001 PS in 2005. By the Mistral, output stood at 1,600 PS, and the configuration had nothing left to prove at either end: top speed, refinement, or theater.

The replacement, the Tourbillon, pairs a naturally aspirated 8.3-liter V16 with electric drive for a combined 1,800 PS, per Bugatti’s official announcement. The W16 was not out-engineered. It was completed. That distinction is why its final chassis carries the weight it does.

A Farewell Written in Pearl, Sparkle, and Crystal

The 99th car is a brief in restraint. Bugatti’s Sur Mesure division finished it in a two-tone of “Pearl” over “Sparkle”, with a hand-sculpted falcon’s head atop the gear shifter and a Lalique crystal armrest plate titled “Spirit of the Wind.” Jascha Straub, who leads Sur Mesure and individualization, described the combination as “effortlessly elegant, true to the spirit of the W16 Mistral in every detail.” It is the closest Molsheim comes to a eulogy.

Note what Bugatti did not do. No neon launch livery. No numbered graphics package. The final W16 Mistral whispers, because at this altitude of the market, provenance does the shouting. Source: Bugatti official end-of-production announcement, July 16, 2026.

The Bugatti W16 Mistral as a Collector Asset

The investment logic rests on documented comparables, not enthusiasm. The Profilée’s €9.79 million result at RM Sotheby’s in 2023 established what the market pays for a W16 with an end-of-era story. The Mistral multiplies that story by 99: enough cars to create a visible market, few enough that one rarely surfaces. Add the 453.91 km/h record, and each of the 99 carries a fact no future Bugatti roadster can take away.

Industry consensus among the major auction houses treats final-of-lineage hypercars as a distinct category, priced on narrative closure rather than specification. The Mistral is now the definitive example of that category. Whether a given chassis appreciates depends, as always, on mileage, specification, and provenance. But the ceiling has already been set in public, under auction lights.

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