As you may know, Volkswagen Auto Group (VAG) holds a myriad of brands under one, expansive, German corporate umbrella. Volkswagen itself is the flagship entry-level brand of convincingly premium, restrained cars. VAG also owns high-luxe brands like Bentley, Lamborghini, Porsche, Audi, and Bugatti. Parts-sharing between economy cars and exotics isn’t usually distractingly obvious, but sometimes there are funny family resemblances. In the Bugatti Chiron’s case, the relationship to VW is audible before you even fire up the engine.
The fact that a $30,000 German hatchback and a $3,000,000 French supercar (ultracar?) share any apparent connection is kind of comical, and yet when you open up a Chiron, there its: the VW key-in-door chime.
And it’s not just in the Bugatti – also most Bentleys, a lot of Audis, and even slightly modified in early Lamborghini Gallardos have it – the VAG chime is everywhere. It’s the same three chimes, actually. There’s one for the ignition, there’s a mild alert chime, and there’s a very serious alert chime.
I scoured the internet for a decent video of a Chiron chime and I found one here (skip to 0:20):
Listen to that, and listen to this video (skip to 1:20) of a normal VW chime:
Sounds pretty close right? Maybe it’s a touch clipped at the end of the chime but sounds damn near the same. The earlier Bugatti Veyron, shares the VAG chime totally and completely. Listen to the Veyron chime here:
Pretty neat, right? I’m sure that us poors will be happy to know that our filth has rubbed off on multi-million dollar cars like Veyrons and Chirons, thinking that their owners will notice the plebian frequencies emanating from their cars.
Truth is that most of the people that own these cars will never put their ass in the seat of a Volkswagen. They will never know that they even share anything. They don’t care. They have a PJ flight to catch to their sixth house on the Amalfi coast. Meanwhile, I’m blogging about how my dumb little hatchback shares something with an unobtanium hypercar. The one percent lives in a different universe. I know which one I’d rather be in… Definitely on the Amalfi coast, but still blogging about key chimes. That would be the life.
