With respect to engines, suspensions, transmissions, and brakes, tires
are the single most important part of a vehicle. You can have the
fastest, sharpest car on the planet, but throwing a set of $50-a-piece,
no-name tires from the local Walmart will have a dramatically negative
impact on performance. That’s why performance brands spare no expense on
rubber.
When the original Bugatti Veyron launched, it did so with a set of Michelins that cost up to $42,000 to replace (or $100,000 with wheels). The tires aren’t as expensive on the Bugatti Chiron, but they’re still serious pieces of engineering. That’s doubly true of the Michelin rubber that took the car past 300 miles per hour. Speaking to Bugatti’s head of development, Stefan Ellrott, Australia’s Wheels uncovered some of the engineering that went into this particular set of rubber.
According
to Ellrott, the two French companies (Michelin’s Clermont-Ferrand
headquarters is just a six-hour drive from Bugatti’s digs near Molsheim)
took the Chiron’s standard tire and applied a layer of carbon fiber to
the carcass for additional strength. Then the two companies tested, but
not with a car.
“We used a plane test bench in Charlotte, [North
Carolina], U.S.A., to make sure that the tire will be okay with more
than 500 kilometers per hour (311 miles per hour),” Ellrott said. “After
that you might see that 500 kph is okay, so you go faster and faster
[with the tire], so we could see what the fade would be.”
"We used a plane test bench to make sure the tire would be okay with more than 500 kph."
That’s
a fancy way of saying Bugatti and Michelin tested the
carbon-fiber-reinforced tires to failure. This was not just for giggles,
though. Suffering a blowout at such speeds would almost certainly be
fatal for the record-setting Chiron’s driver, Andy Wallace. So, the two
companies pushed the tire to the max to identify warning signs that the
tire was preparing to let go.
‘You will first have signs that the
tire is going to be destroyed. There will be noise and vibrations before
the tire completely explodes,” Ellrott told Wheels.
Fortunately for Bugatti, Michelin, and Wallace, aside from a jump, the Chiron hit 304 without issue. According to Wheels, the upgraded Michelins will likely end up on the limited-edition Chiron Super Sport 300+.
