HAND MAKING A BUGATTI CHIRON CRASH BAR

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]How the [ __ ] am I going to fix this?

[00:00:02]We've taken on the gearbox mount, hand fabricated brackets. We've even customuilt radiators. Everything up to this point has been a challenge. But this this is just impossible. I mean, how the am I going to fix that? I don't even know where to start. Matt Armstrong has given me the challenge of making the front crash bumper for the Bugatti Chiron.

[00:00:23]>> That is mangled.

[00:00:24]>> That is mangled. But do you know how easy it would be just to buy that from Bugatti and then just fit it? It would be >> I could have to make that.

[00:00:31]>> Yeah.

[00:00:31]>> Everything else up to this point I could copy or repair. But with this, what do I copy? What do I repair? I'm going to have to guess a lot of this, but I've got an idea.

[00:00:46]So, this thing this thing is mangled, but with even how bad it looks, there's a lot of useful data we can pull from it. So, the first thing is to capture the data.

[00:01:10]All jokes aside, we do need to get serious with this. And with Anathan serious, you bring out the big guns. You bring out the CAD. Crayon aided design.

[00:01:54]Now we've got some accurate data, we can get back to the UK and get this started.

[00:01:59]So before we dive any deeper, we need to have a look at how this thing is actually made. A place where most of the Bugatti bumper will have started its life. This is an aluminium extrusion factory.

[00:02:17]This is the mantle. So the dye or the shape of the external part of the aluminium that you want bumps on here.

[00:02:22]Then the aluminium gets pushed from the other side where it's really hot and soft through that dye like a big play machine. So imagine this is just like a bottle jack. You've got all the pressure building up behind the ram here. Pushes the ram forward and pushes the aluminium through the dye. So this is what's left of the log when it gets pushed through the mantle. And these are some of the shapes that can be made when it's pushed through the die. This is a heat sink commonly used in like computer parts on PCBs and stuff. Just goes to show you how many different types of parts and things that can be made using this process. So there's your profiles that have come out the extrusion of the die.

[00:02:58]And that's the dye in the middle. So we've got to take it down to a little machine that will separate it.

[00:03:03]>> This part of the process I hadn't a clue it even existed. So there's a clamp at that and a clamp at this and it grabs in pieces and it can stretch in depending on what uh structure you want in it. It actually affects the cryst and can affect the temp the temper state. So it basically makes it harder just by grabbing it and pulling. I didn't know that was a thing. This machine is 70 m long. That's crazy big. So when it goes through the machine that squeezes it out, gets laid out there and then stretched. Once it's stretched and cooled down enough, it goes onto this rack. Now, this rack gets lifted away up in the air and then placed down in here for storage and then it gets brought over to this massive oven here. Now, this is something that we talk about a lot in the channel uh about um tempering and hardness of aluminium. So, this can uh artificially age harden aluminium or temper the aluminium depending on what you need. So, they can set it to different temperatures for different lengths of time to get different qualities out of the aluminium. So, I'm finding this super interesting. Once it's finished in the oven, it's taken up and put onto the rack there ready for cutting to size for the customer.

[00:04:12]So, we're back from the extrusion place and we have had our prices through for the tooling. It's £5,000 per piece of tooling. Now, we've got three different types of aluminium that we need for the front of this car and a minimum order quantity of 5 tons per shape. You do the math. So, that's not really practical for us. So, we're going to have to find it somewhere else. And no, we don't have that much time or that much money. Let's see what metal we can get together and start building this frame.

[00:04:46]>> Yeah.

[00:04:47]>> Hi. Um, I'm just wondering, have you got any like aluminium that is about like that size with a bit of like stuff in the middle? Like a rib down the middle and probably about 3 m of it?

[00:04:58]>> No. Huh? We got anything I got?

[00:05:01]>> One sec. One sec.

[00:05:06]I've got these.

[00:05:07]>> Oh, sick. Thank you.

[00:05:09]>> So, you may be wondering, how are we actually going to make this? We know where the end points are. So, I plotted it out on my table there, and I put another mark here. So if we draw a straight line between the two, then we find the center of this line and then we mark every 100 mm away from that because we're going to do the same in our drawings. And then when we measure from that line up to the bumper mount thingy, we'll know how far away it is from that from that line and then it'll give us our radius. Something like that.

[00:05:54]Now we take the center line, we measure up. That'll give us their the furthest forward point of the car.

[00:06:03]Now I've got my square lines and I know how far away the front bumper mount thing. We need a proper name for that.

[00:06:08]Front bumper mount. Front bumper mount.

[00:06:10]Okay, cool. And we know how far away the front bumper mount is from that straight line. We can start marking it out like I've done here.

[00:06:19]>> Now we just join all those lines together. This is like art attack.

[00:06:24]>> Bob >> Bob attack.

[00:06:27]>> So now we've got the measurements down on the table. It's time to start cutting some metal. And what you're about to see us do with that metal is get it ready to be bent into the right shape. And how we start is to s it up. The temperature it takes to burn the soot away is luckily enough is the same temperature to anneal the metal. That means heat it so it goes soft enough to bend it. So once all the soot is gone, that means we can start bending. This makes sure that the metal is not going to work hard and split during the bending process. So I don't have a pipe bender that will bend square tube. So, I'm just going to put these two clamps into my jig table and bend them old school. Now, I've got two of these to make, and they have to be perfect. This isn't a quick task. So, let's roll the time lapse, and I'll see you when we finish them.

[00:07:16]We are this far.

[00:07:19]We have the brackets on the bottom. Our radius seems to be correct.

[00:07:24]Next thing I need to do is make the top bit.

[00:07:29]that goes around there. And it's exactly the same method.

[00:07:32]>> Even getting this far has been a big challenge. And doing all this without the right plans or without the right tools, we've just got to hope that this fits when we take it over to Miami.

[00:07:44]So, to make sure everything fits where it needs to be, we're going to clamp it firmly down to the table. And that gives us a perfect base to work off. Like with these uprightes, they have to be in the perfect position because if they're even 1 mm out, nothing else will fit.

[00:08:09]I wonder will it fit? First time.

[00:08:13]Look, fit perfectly. First time with no revisions.

[00:08:16]So, with two uprightes made and square, we need to get everything clean before we start welding.

[00:08:48]So, the way I made this, I put it on the table and I started bending it around to get that radius and that radius. Now, how do I tell where the middle is? If this tail is longer than that tail or these radiuses are slightly different.

[00:09:00]So, we're going to do a little bit of measuring. So if I take this and put it between two points that are the same height, if we get an even distance from the table, 31 28, it needs to go up on that side.

[00:09:17]Now I know that the radius there and radius there should be matching. All I need is a distance between the two hard points. So we're going there and that end 28. So 6040 and we find the middle between these two posts.

[00:09:42]So in theory that should be square now.

[00:09:46]Thought you didn't live Bob. What you did?

[00:09:48]>> I went to chew the end of my pen, but I chewed the front of my pen. Now got marker.

[00:09:53]And with all that math hopefully working out, we just need to cut the uprightes and get this bar pushed back into its right position.

[00:10:13]With the main structure all tacked together, there's just a few more pieces that are yet to be bent. This kind of work is very repetitive, but will be really rewarding when we see it on the Bugatti.

[00:10:36]This is W food. A meal in a bottle.

[00:10:40]If you're like me and you're obsessed with working all day, it gets to the evening and you're really, really hungry. The only place that's left is the local drive-thru. We don't like eating that. This is a brilliant alternative. Cold brew coffee is my favorite. But from the original taster pack, you also have fresh berry, classic choco, happy banana, and smooth vanilla.

[00:10:58]And we've got some new flavors like this, which is cherry, as well as peach, strawberry, and mango, which taste like yogurt. And these ones taste like milkshake. Each drink contains 30 g of protein, is high in fiber, and if you like vitamins and minerals, it's got 26, which is more than 25. White food takes the hunger off you for 3 to 5 hours. So, if you're looking for a handy snack, grab a bottle. White food has given you 30% off if you want to try using the code Boby YouTube. The code only lasts for 5 days, so make sure you stock up fast. Is I slap things real fast and judging by the amount of pain that goes through my hand, I know if I can pick it up or not. So, I just went like that. I was like, and okay, right. That that was kind of stingy. That means I can pick it up.

[00:11:40]Will it fit? I've not measured anything.

[00:11:44]This is just out of the bender >> straight away.

[00:11:53]Like that's actually perfection.

[00:11:56]>> Yeah, it's a bit short. It's okay. We can jump that with a bother. The thing is making a part like this, there is endless amounts of tiny details and features that go into it. Little features and details that you probably wouldn't notice if you walked past it.

[00:12:12]And they make all the difference when it's finished. And that is what makes this take so long. So things I was doing last night while my cameraman was at home in bed sleeping.

[00:12:24]>> Uh I was I put these pieces on top. So again, we can't buy extrusion or metal the same shape as Bugatti uh make theirs. So what we do is we we make our own instead. So we just stack lots of little box section on top of each other and that will replicate their type of aluminium um stuff that they use. So I've cut all them. I've shaped it very close to what I can remember the Bugatti looking like in America. Um, I've put these pieces in as well. Uh, these took far longer than I was expecting. Uh, and I didn't do it very nicely. So, we've got some, um, other little bits of tabs to weld on there. I'll show you that in a few minutes. Uh, just to neaten up, make it look as good as possible before we spray it and then bury it in front of a Bugatti. No one ever see it again.

[00:13:06]But, um, it has to look good. And then we've got the, uh, mounting brackets on the side of this to do as well. Now, we're going to fully weld it first and then we're going to drill all the mounting holes in it after. So mounting holes are things that the bumpers and the radiators and stuff go onto. The reason we don't drill them now is because when you weld aluminium, it twists and warps moves. So if we accurately pinpoint all those bolt holes and then weld it, they'll all move and they'll be in the wrong place. So we do that after. So hopefully that made some sense to you. Basically, we're going to do the major welding before we do anything else.

[00:13:53]I love you.

[00:14:11]So, with the last few welds done, we can start transferring over the mountain points.

[00:14:49]Oh, my markers are dry.

[00:14:52]>> You look perplexed.

[00:14:55]>> Yeah. Um, this is way too accurate. So, the these are my datim. So, these are the pieces of information that really matter, the hard points. This is the bit that mounts to the rest of the car. I've just mounted the frame onto my table to measure it. And I've put this end to that corner and I've put this end to the side of the table. I randomly cut these, not randomly, but I knew roughly where they should be. And I cut them with bandsaw. And same on that end. you'd expect that they're going to be slightly out or the bends are not going to be like the correct radiuses or something would be wrong somewhere and it cause a massive headache. But when I measure from when you measure from this datim here, you get 192 mil.

[00:15:36]And then you do the same here and you get 192 mil. 474 and this one 473.

[00:15:47]That's too close to be now convincing something wrong because nothing should ever be that right. See if the rest of it works out.

[00:15:58]It's 10 mil too low. Yeah, that's what I was expecting. So, this is something we actually expect to happen. This side is warped ever so slightly from the welding process. All we're going to do, heat it up, give it a push, get it fitting right. Now we've done that, we can think about all the other intricate cuts we have to do. Honestly, we've got a long way to go before we're finished.

[00:16:27]So, what you're seeing now is me getting ready to make this relief cut. You can see here it's a bit of an intricate shape. So, we have to drill each corner with a hole saw. That will start our rounded edge. Then, we can cut the rest out with the metal saw and get the exact shape we need.

[00:16:45]There's one of these on the bottom of the bumper as well. I haven't a clue what it's for, but if Bugatti did it, we do it.

[00:16:59]And with a quick clean, it's already looking a million times better. The next thing we have to tackle are these little bumper mounts. Most of these were broken or missing on the Chiron, so we're going to have to make our own. So, what we're going to do is we're going to get Pete on the lathe and he's going to make them for us. While Pete's finishing that off, we're going to go back and do more trimming on the bumper mount.

[00:17:38]So, this is the last push to get it finished. The final hurdle before we have to get this wrapped up and sent over to Miami. But we're not going to rush this. As much fun as we're having, we want to do Bugatti proud. We need this to be as close to the original as possible. One thing we couldn't replicate was the internal structure of one of Bugatti's custom extrusions. So, we've cut our own box section in half just to install that one piece, then rewelded the box section back together.

[00:18:08]This has taken some real thinking power, many hours, and a whole lot of determination to get this right. So, we're going to leave you with the last few clips of this being finished before we give you the final reveal. There's just a few places in the world with the right equipment and only a few people in the world with the right training to be able to do that.

[00:18:30]>> Well, it looks like there's a few more now, right? We would have been able to do this in about a quarter of the time if we had a Bugatti Chiron to copy.

[00:18:43]Nobody's going to risk giving us their car in case they get blacklisted by Bugatti. This has been the trickiest task of the entire build. I have put a ton of hours into this and it has really challenged me and I hope you like the final result.

[00:19:11]Now it's time to get this thing on the plane and get over to Miami.

[00:19:15]>> Groundhog Day.

[00:19:16]>> Groundhog Day.

[00:19:18]>> We're back here then.

[00:19:20]>> It's going to go better this time.

[00:19:21]>> We got things packed properly.

[00:19:23]>> Yes, it's packed properly. We've weighed the bumper mount thing and it's actually 9 kilos.

[00:19:27]>> I think with all the packing it might be up to 15, but you know, we're still winning. And where? Um, Matt's asked me to bring over a load of his washing as well. So, I've got all Matt Armstrong's boxers in the back of my van.

[00:19:38]>> Yeah. 15 kilos. I reckon 15 kilos. Do you? I'm going to say 17.

[00:19:43]>> All right.

[00:19:43]>> Yeah, >> I'll say 15. You 17.

[00:19:45]>> Tell her.

[00:19:46]>> Oh, you didn't. Okay. You got me there, but All right.

[00:19:55]>> Right. We're ready. Ready.

[00:19:58]Sake, Bob.

[00:20:01]Okay, not bad. I think Bob wins.

[00:20:06]>> And just like that, we are on the way.

[00:20:08]So, let's go see if this thing actually fits.

[00:20:18]Oh yeah, that is insane.

[00:20:25]What the hell is going on?

[00:20:28]What is going on there? Like genuinely like how how the hell you are a special type of human.

[00:20:38]It's here undamaged. Well, no signs of any damage anyway. So, as we know, we have made this pretty much out of my imagination. There's no way in the world this is going to fit because we had no dimensions. We had no help. We'd know like on the engine mount that was just welded back together. The radiators we had something to measure and make this.

[00:21:02]It's not going to fit. So, we're expecting to have to measure up, bring it back to UK, modify a bit, and then um once the modifications are done, we can bring it back and it'll fit. So, let's see how far it's out.

[00:21:25]Can you believe it? It fitted perfectly first time. There's a few bits and pieces that might need to be looked at when the body kit gets here, but for now, everything is bolting up as it should. Now, all that's left to do is give it a lick of paint and get it back on the road once again.

[00:21:58]This whole thing is so important because it holds the bumper. It holds the front splitter. It's the literally the front end of the car. It holds the horseshoe at the front. It holds the alarm, the horn, the crash sensors, the bonnet lock. that if one of these things is out of line, the whole car is not going to look right. The bonnet isn't going to go down. The crash sensors are going to work and nothing is going to line up.

[00:22:28]>> I can't believe we did it.

[00:22:39]So, how did you make your bumper mount?

[00:22:43]Well,