Bugatti Factor One Trades Straight-Line Acceleration For Added Lightness And A Much More Affordable $23,599 Pricetag

Bugattis are not the kind of cars you save up for. Even if you threw $50,000 a year into your New Bugatti fund, it would take something like 60 years before you finally had base Chiron money. Not that you'd want one anyway. Sure, a Chiron makes like 1,500 horsepower, but it also weighs about 4,400 lbs, and who would ever want to drive something so heavy? The good news is, though, Bugatti has an answer for that in the form of the Factor One. If you're willing to sacrifice straight-line speed, you can now order an ultra-light Bugatti that costs less than a new Honda Civic and weighs much less than a Chiron.

The fact that it's cheap didn't stop Bugatti from building the Factor One almost entirely out of carbon fiber. Is that Hyundai Venue you were considering made out of carbon fiber? No, it's not. And while it doesn't look like Bugatti has published an official curb weight, each wheel reportedly weighs 649 grams, or roughly 1.4 pounds. Meanwhile, the carbon fiber wheels Ford so famously offered on the Shelby GT350R weighed in at 18 pounds each — because the Mustang is a car, and the Factor One is a very expensive bicycle developed in partnership with Factor Bikes.

Ask Rob Gitelis, Factor's founder, though, and he'll insist that characterization is too reductive. "The Bugatti Factor ONE is not simply a bicycle. It is a statement," Gitelis said in... a statement. "This project challenged us to rethink every assumption and push engineering boundaries in the same way Bugatti has done in the automotive world for over a century."

Like most of the bicycles that automakers put their names on, the Bugatti Factor One isn't a wholly original design. The Factor One already exists, and depending on which version you get, costs range from $11,999 to $14,499, which our sharp-eyed readers have probably noticed is priced significantly lower than the Bugatti version. So where does that extra money go? Do Bugatti and Factor really expect people to pay nearly $10,000 more for that sweet Bugatti Blue paint? Not exactly, but the explanation is a little nerdier than you might be prepared for.

Basically, the Factor developed the One to comply with regulations published by Union Cycliste Internationale, the organization that's roughly the cycling equivalent of the FIA. For the Bugatti version, they tossed the UCI rulebook and built the bike their engineers would build if they didn't have to follow any stinkin' rules. Kind of like a McLaren Senna, even down to the part where it's (presumably) slower around a track than a Chevrolet Corvette ZR1. As Factor explains on its website:

The front fork has been meticulously engineered to deliver measurable aerodynamic gains, reducing drag through refined shaping and optimised airflow management around the leading edge of the bike. This design not only enhances high-speed efficiency but also improves front-end stability, ensuring precise handling under race conditions. With the release of the Factor ONE, the world's fastest UCI-legal bike, it became clear how much innovation was possible within the confines of the UCI rulebook. The Bugatti Factor ONE eschews the rulebook, resulting in a frame with a wider fork stance and lower drag numbers.

As you can probably imagine, even with a Bugatti badge, there isn't a whole lot of demand for a $23,599 bicycle that you can't race, and production will be similarly limited. Only 250 Bugatti Factor Ones will ever be built. How many of those will ever get ridden remains to be seen, but something tells me the usage graph will be less K-shaped and more like 10 owners putting thousands of miles on them every year while the other 240 sit in storage or on display. And I bet the ones who actually ride them will love the experience, even if 99.999% of people on earth couldn't even begin to wrap their minds around spending Honda Civic money on a bicycle.