Vietnamese Enthusiasts Spend a Year Building a Clay Bugatti Chiron Replica

A group of enthusiasts in Vietnam has created an unusual full-size replica of the Bugatti Chiron hypercar. Instead of carbon fiber and advanced manufacturing techniques, they relied on simple materials including steel rods, polyethylene film, clay, plaster, and fiberglass. The project took about a year to complete.

The replica was built by the team behind the NHET TV YouTube channel from Quang Ninh Province. They previously gained attention for hand-built replicas of the Lamborghini Aventador SVJ and several sport motorcycles, but the Bugatti Chiron proved to be their most challenging project yet.

Work began with several scale models of the hypercar. Rather than following a traditional process, the team first sculpted the body from clay, then created a plaster mold before producing the final fiberglass body panels.

According to one member of the team, creating the body mold was the most difficult part of the project.

“We had to redo everything many times to achieve the right proportions. Of course, the car is a little different from the original because it was built entirely by hand—without 3D printing, CNC machines, or computer modeling,” the project's creator said.

Despite its close resemblance to the original Chiron, the replica is mechanically very different. It features hand-built 19-inch wheels, a custom braking system, a suspension using heavy-duty truck shocks, and electric power steering.

Instead of Bugatti’s iconic 8.0-liter quad-turbocharged W16 engine, the car is powered by a 1.6-liter gasoline engine from a 1998 Toyota Corolla. The engine is mounted in the rear and drives the rear wheels.

The unusual hypercar cost about 600 million Vietnamese dong to build.

Although the creators received offers to buy the car for about 1.2 billion Vietnamese dong, they declined to sell it, saying the project is worth far more to them than money.