► New 3D printed brakes
► Bugatti’s biggest yet
► Coming to the Chiron by end of ’18
Bugatti has announced the world’s largest production car brake calipers, that also happen to be 3D printed.
The brand is breaking new ground with its new 3D printed parts, as the new eight-piston monobloc titanium calipers are the first ever to be produced using this process.
Bugatti’s Chiron hypercar already has the most powerful brakes on a production car anyway, made from a strong but light aluminium alloy, but these new titanium ones could make it onto the Chiron towards the end of 2018 after trial use.
The new brake calipers are crafted using 400-watt lasers and take around 45 hours each to make. The titanium component itself has a tensile strength of 1250N/mm2 but weighs 40% less than the aluminium ones already in service.
‘Vehicle development is a never-ending process’, said boss of new tech at Bugatti, Frank Götzke, ‘In our continuing development efforts, we are always considering how new materials and processes can be used to make our current model even better and how future vehicles of our brand could be designed.’
‘In 3-D printing development, Bugatti is the leader in the Volkswagen group. Everyone can and should benefit from our projects. This is also part of Bugatti’s role as the Group laboratory for high-tech applications.’
Check out our video review of the Bugatti Chiron
