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This is the Bugatti Vision Gran Turismo

After an August tease, Bugatti has unveiled its Vision Gran Turismo, a hypercar designed for Polyphony Digital's ever-expanding slate of fanciful, incredible cars designed for Gran Turismo's virtual world. It's pretty amazing to see a staid, century-old maker of multimillion dollar works of art even participate in the project, but what's even more amazing is that this looks like it could be a real car — and it will be, on the floor of the Frankfurt auto show later this month.

The company says that the Vision Gran Turismo car celebrates Bugatti's history, but you can clearly see strong elements of Veyron in here, and they've previously hinted that design elements on this car would foreshadow Bugatti's future. In other words, we're probably seeing at least a few elements here from the Chiron, the company's next hypercar expected to launch next year for in excess of $2 million with well over 1,400 horsepower and a top speed approaching 300 miles per hour. (Actually, the Chiron sounds as fanciful as many Vision Gran Turismo cars do, come to think of it.)

Here are some words from Bugatti on the car's design:

The designers have unmistakably transferred the most important characteristics of Bugatti's design DNA into the styling of the virtual race car. Consequently, the side view of the Bugatti Vision Gran Turismo is characterised by the famous Bugatti line. And the virtual race car has also been furnished with the most recognisable symbol of a Bugatti, the horse shoe on the front grille. It is placed in the centre of the central front air intake as three-dimensional sculpture and supports the structure between the wings and the aerodynamic front splitter. The horse shoe is flanked by the eight-eyed headlights, which were developed especially for the Bugatti Vision Gran Turismo.

Another typical Bugatti design element is the centre fin, which originated on the legendary Type 57 Atlantic from 1936. The designers employ two versions of the fin on the Bugatti Vision Gran Turismo: one on the front and rear wings, where they contribute to the appearance of the vehicle and the other running the length of the roof, where it makes an important contribution to the car's dynamic stability.

An interesting detail on the roof is the NACA air intake, which, with its contrasting light blue finish, not only has a strikingly beautiful shape but also makes a crucial contribution to the control of the aerodynamic conditions on top of and at the rear of the car without compromising the effectiveness of the impressive rear wing.

The car has a strong trailing edge which provides great longitudinal-dynamic stability, exhausts the hot air from the engine compartment and, no less important, communicates to the pursuer in the video game that a Bugatti is getting away from him.

Look for it at the Frankfurt show starting the week of September 14th, but there's no word on when it'll be available to download into Gran Turismo 6.

Bugatti Vision Gran Turismo photos

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