Ongoing Youtube saga over crashed Bugatti Chiron puts 3D printing front and center

When influencer Alex Gonzalez posted to his million+ followers that he was going to 3D print replacement parts to repair a crash-damaged Bugatti Chiron Pur Sport hypercar, the claim garnered an urgent response from none other than Bugatti Rimac CEO Mate Rimac. The story of this damaged hypercar has made waves in the automotive world and sparked a discussion on non-authorized repairs.

Now, before we get into the saga of this car, it’s important to understand the significance of the Bugatti Chiron Pur Sport. The two-seater hypercar, only 60 of which were made, sold for upwards of $3.6 million. For our purposes, it is also worth mentioning that the hypercar itself integrates some highly engineered 3D printed components, including a titanium exhaust tailpipe made by APWORKS.

When Alex Gonzalez crashed his multi-million-dollar vehicle, it came with a $1.7 million repair quote, which would have to be carried out exclusively by Bugatti. Ultimately, however, the car was declared totaled and went to auction, where it was re-purchased by Gonzalez. At this point, viral automotive repair specialist and Youtuber Mat Armstrong was able to get his hands on the car to take it apart and attempt to rebuild it.

Also important to note is that Bugatti had essentially blacklisted the car, which means that whoever was attempting to fix it could not order any official spare parts (the idea being that the car should be officially repaired at Bugatti’s facility in France). This makes a lot of sense: the company makes high-powered vehicles that can reach up to 350 km/h and wants to protect not only its brand and the quality associated with it, but also drivers and others on the road.

As Armstrong quite astutely puts is: “These manufacturers don’t want someone like me repairing a car like this.” To move the story along, Gonzalez and Armstrong continue to make viral content about the ongoing hypercar drama—and discuss 3D printing components for the car or sourcing components from Audis and other vehicles—while Bugatti Rimac is appealing to let them repair the car at their facility. The automotive maker reportedly even brought down its restoration quote from $1.7 million to under $700,000.

In a video posted by Bugatti Rimac owner Mate Rimac, he explains how carefully engineered the hypercars are and how, while they use 3D printing internally, the technology shouldn’t be used to repair parts like gearboxes. He points to the many R&D resources that Bugatti uses to ensure that 3D printed and otherwise manufactured parts are up to the company’s high standards, resources that small shops simply don’t have. Rimac also debunks the rumored cost of new headlights for the Bugatti Chiron, saying that the $150,000 price tag floating around is about $100,000 more than the actual cost. You can watch his full response on Instagram here.

The latest in this hypercar saga seems to be that Armstrong and Gonzalez are still hoping Bugatti will sell them parts to repair the car, but will rebuild the car “one way or another”. Gonzalez responded to Rimac’s post with his own, saying that he found the automotive executive’s explanation “disingenuous” and that the situation is more about “control” than safety. He admits that his initial message to Bugatti (“you have 24 hours to unblacklist this car or we will 3D print all parts”) was trolling, but maintains that he will continue to find third-party solutions to fix the car as long as Bugatti won’t sell them parts, including 3D printing non-critical components like the front fender and grille.

From our perspective, it has been interesting to see 3D printing being framed as a central part of the story in automotive blogs, when really the point of contention seems to be about who can and should repair a multi-million-dollar sports car. Regardless of what happens, the documentation that comes along with a car as rare as a Bugatti Chiron will show the vehicle’s history, from the crash and auction sale to the fact that Bugatti blacklisted it. We’ll be sure to follow how this story develops in the coming weeks.