Have you ever noticed this strange phenomenon? It would seem that the costliest examples of any object ever made are rarely used for their intended purpose. Despite being crafted exquisitely to perform the task at hand far better than any similar Costco-grade item you might compare it to, most of these things will simply sit on display in a clear box or even rarely see the light of day.
Napoleon’s coronation sword is one case in point. The blade was made by a Versailles arms factory, but the real piece de resistance was the handle. Studded with forty-two brilliant cut diamonds for a total of 254 carats, the centerpiece was something called the Regent diamond valued at around six million francs in 1801. If Mister Bonaparte chose to throw down with this fabulous weapon, it would likely serve the little guy quite well, yet I sincerely doubt that this jewel-encrusted sword was ever raised in anger. The most resistance the sword ever met was probably a leather sheath instead of its usual velvet covering.
It’s the same story with many automobiles of similar value. Sure, Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason might still drive his 1962 Ferrari 250GTO at alarming speeds around the track, yet to him this now-$65-million-dollar car is just something that he bought for around $50,000 half a century ago (and I am rather certain that he doesn’t need the money). I’m not talking about that kind of vehicle: the automobiles I’m referring to are current new ones that cost several million dollars, such as the Bugatti Tourbillon that every car site has been falling over themselves to tell you about.
They’ll Still Charge Extra For TruCoat
Never has an over-the-top machine been named as appropriately as this new $4.1 million dollar Bugatti Tourbillon; the description of the net worth of the prospective buyer is right in the title. Whatever your opinion of this kind of hypercar, you can’t help but be impressed by the performance, or the cool center-parking wiper.
With 1000 horsepower from the V-16 and 800 more from the electric motors, this hybrid has more power than eight Prius put together and a zero to sixty time of around 2.0 seconds. Top speed is reported to be around 277mph; a “speed limiter” key can lock it to 236mph, an absurd velocity that has me wondering why they bothered giving it such a “limiter” in the first place. Is a valet really not going to want to hoon it since it can only do 236 in “slow” mode?
The interior is the expected best-of-everything leather-from-cows-kept-in-padded-rooms variety:
Gauges are extremely trick, with a center hub that stays stationary while the wheel moves around the fancy-watch-style gauges. There’s plenty of high-dollar machines out there, but no other car has anything this complex and elaborate:
However, is the Tourbillon really a “car”? By definition maybe, but it will rarely do “carlike” things such as pop down to Whole Foods after dropping off the kid at soccer practice. Quite honestly, most of the captains of industry and celebrities that purchase a Bugatti don’t even do “carlike” things in the first place; anyone that can afford a $4 million car in the way you or I might be able to swing a $40,000 car (or $4,000 car) will likely be driven everywhere they want to go anyway and not even have time or interest in doing the kinds of pleasure drives that such an ostentatious ride is best suited for.
Mark my words: ten or even twenty years from now you’ll be hard-pressed to find more than one Tourbillon with more than a few thousand miles on the clock. Most will barely ever get into four digits. Very few will see 250 miles an hour, instead, most will live like Napolean’s sword. Virtually all Tourbillons will sit in a dark, dehumidified garage or possibly in a private museum, surrounded by other baubles and trinkets of the super wealthy to be appreciated for the effort that went into its creation and what it represents. As a real vehicle, it will likely not serve much of a purpose; it might as well be the world’s finest garbage truck or most desirable ride-on lawn mower.
Wait, what did I just say? A hyper garden tractor? That might not be a bad idea. Actually, it’s a terrible idea. Let’s do this.
At 150MPH You’ll Finish The Yard In Ten Minutes
A ride-on lawn mower might be seen as the epitome of middle-class luxury, but that’s not to say that certain well-heeled individuals don’t like a good spin around the yard. Indeed, some celebrities have been famous for enjoying the zen-garden-like circulation of their property and the smell of fresh-cut grass. Legendary country star and often-friend-of-the-bottle George Jones was well-known for being a lawn mowing fan, and his trusty little tractor served him quite well on at least one occasion when his spouse hid the keys to his cars to stop him from driving to the liquor store. According to his autobiography, he looked out the window and saw something under the security lights:
“There, gleaming in the glow, was that ten-horsepower rotary engine under a seat. A key glistening in the ignition. I imagine the top speed for that old mower was five miles per hour. It might have taken an hour and a half or more for me to get to the liquor store, but get there I did.”
By “rotary engine,” was he referring to the infamous Arctic Cat Wankel-powered mower from the early seventies? I would doubt it but based upon Mr. Jones later incidents such as one with a 5500 pound Lexus SUV, we can just be thankful that George did not own Honda’s creation of a few years back called the Mean Mower.
The Honda Mean Mower Version 2 is reportedly a functioning lawn mower that happens to be powered by a 190 horsepower 1-liter motor taken from a CBR1000RR Fireblade SP bike. With a reported top speed of 150.99mph and a neck-snapping zero-to-100 time of only 6.29 seconds, it’s billed as “the world’s fastest lawn mower”.
Exactly what constitutes “lawn mower” by the Guinness Book of World Records is hard to ascertain, but I believe it’s that the vehicle needs to actually be able to cut grass and “look like a lawn mower.” Here you can see a side-by-side with the actual mower the Mean Mower is based on; a bit of a stretch if you ask me:
I don’t know about you, but I see beating such a performance milestone with a machine featuring better actual lawn manicuring capabilities and luxury accoutrements far beyond what the Mean Mower as a challenge that a company such as Bugatti must accept.
Mow Power, Mow Glory
The press releases for the new Bugatti make much of how the design is supposed to evoke their pre-war models. It’s apparently also inspired by the shape of “a Falcon reducing its frontal area,” or at least that’s the (possibly bullshit) narrative that they’re using.
In making a Bugatti lawn mower, it seems that I’ll have to choose something to inspire it. Or, in the case of what I often do, design something and then once I’m done I work backward to come up with an ancient car that looks sort of like at and call it my “muse”. After finishing the drawings, I noticed how much an open-seating vehicle like a ride-on tractor resembles Bugatti’s own legendary open racers like the Type 45.
I mean, if a Type 45 got rear-ended by an Excursion, rammed it into the back of a RAM van, and then a big X-Cargo carrier full of rocks on the roof of the Ford flew forward in the collision and landed on top of the poor Bugatti, then the resulting mess might sort of look like a ride-on tractor. Anyway, I’m calling it “my inspiration.”
Our Type 45-inspired mower is the Bugatti Garcon De Palouse, which is French for “Lawn Boy.” The press would almost certainly call it the “million dollar lawn mower,” the likely cost of each of the only 250 units made. I figured we’d produce just as many of the mowers as Tourbillons, since anyone that can afford a 4-million-dollar car could afford (and would want) a matching lawn mower.
The horseshoe grille and the two-tone “C” shaped sweep on the side let the world know that this ain’t a John Deere. No, this machine is the perfect embodiment of what Ettore Bugatti himself would have envisioned were he still alive and wanted to release, you know, a precision landscaping instrument.
Naturally, the Bugatti mower is a performance machine worthy of the brand. The 190 horsepower of the Honda Mean Mower is mightily trounced by the 335 produced by the 4 cylinders impossibly squeezed under the hood taken from a Golf Type R. There’s no room for batteries so this will be a strictly gas-powered tractor; four driven wheels might be necessary to get all of the power to the ground. I doubt it would see 200 miles an hour but the top speed of the Honda should easily be put to shame.
The driver sits low behind the cowl as on the Honda, but Bugatti won’t release a lawn mower that can’t adequately do all the jobs it’s made for. As such, the driver’s seat residing in that signature Bugatti “C” shaped area can electrically pivot so that the operator can sit more upright and get a better view of what he or she is mowing. They’ll get an ever better view if they look down since there are glass windows on the top of the mower blade cover to allow you to see the hand-crafted silver-plated blade doing its thing. Ride height is also fully adjustable to let the Bugatti fully adapt to crawling over rough terrain at five miles an hour or hammering along at triple-digit speeds.
The clippings bag in the rear can fully collapse when empty to allow for speed runs or to allow for trailers and other implements to be towed behind (or even a power take-off to run accessories like log splitters). That bag, naturally, is made of the finest buffalo leather that matches the hides on the seat and is hand-stitched by one of only two craftspeople in the world allowed to fabricate each clippings sack. Their signature resides inside so you can compare with other Bugatti owners at lawn mower concours event: “I owned one with a Michelle Delon bag, but I do believe that the Jacques Brossard stitched examples are far superior”.
I’d considered an enclosed mower but that becomes far more of a “tractor” than I’d want. Still, a touch of a button will raise an umbrella to protect you from the sun or a sudden shower; the umbrella automatically lowers at speeds above fifteen miles an hour. More switches will deliver cooled air through the seat, and you can adjust how much will blow on your neck, back, or butt. Speakers in the seat, including woofers in the bottom area, deliver concert-level sound you can hear over the sound of the mower; headphones are included in a small compartment as well. Under the seat, a small compartment holds a silver-plated trowel and clippers, each with leather-bound grips and diamond-encrusted handle caps.
Like the Tourbillon, the center of the steering wheel stays put while the wheel turns. In the case of a mower, there are fuel and temperature gauges on either side of the center hub, since those you’ll need whether doing speed runs or mowing. Behind the wheel is a screen that graphically simulates the gauges on the Tourbillon when in driving mode and then changes to mowing format when you kick on the blade. Mowing format gives you minimal speed information and instead relays grass height selection and options for the self-driving feature. Using satellite information, the mower maps out your yard and determines the best circulation for efficient mowing, with sensors offering safeguards for automatic operation. You don’t even need to ride on the ride-on mower if a tee time or polo match awaits.
At Forty Bucks A Lawn You’ll Pay For It In…Uhhh..
What exactly does a Faberge egg do besides just sit there? Many of them have gold trinkets permanently mounted inside so they can’t even be used to store something. It basically does nothing. Despite this, they still sell for millions of dollars on the rare occasions that they come to market. It’s not like the person purchasing it will ever need one as a place to store their earbuds, right?
We could say the same thing about the Bugatti Garcon De Palouse mower. It might never turn a blade in anger on a lawn, just as the Tourbillon coupe’s tires will never roll on a city street, but it doesn’t matter. As an object to be admired for its exemplary craftsmanship and class-obliterating performance- that will never be utilized- it does exactly what it’s meant to do.
Now, about that Bugatti garbage truck…
Our Daydreaming Designer Imagines The Tesla Of Ride On Lawn Mowers – The Autopian
The 1,775 HP Bugatti Tourbillon Is A Hybrid V16 Rocketship – The Autopian
I was all on-board until this:
No billionaire is ever going to voluntarily admit that they have an inferior sack.