COVER OF DARKNESS: Bugatti Bolide and V10 Jag F1 Take To Busy City Streets

“So, let me get this straight. Australia’s only Bugatti Bolide and a V10 Formula One car drove through the heart of the city. On a Monday night. And no one knew about it until it happened?”

Nestled in the secluded corner of a popular roadside cafe, I find myself recounting the previous night’s events. As the words exit my mouth and sentences string together, the concept feels hallucinatory. In what possible universe would a $10 million, track-only Bugatti disregard all common sense and depart its natural habitat for a loop of the Adelaide CBD in peak hour traffic?

Well, it happened.

For the marketing geniuses behind the world-renowned Adelaide Motorsport Festival, event promotion doesn’t consist of generic flyers and standard-issue commercials. Instead, they like to leave a lasting impression. Every year, the AMF team pulls of what could only be described as audacious, with moments that combine motorsport fantasy with guerrilla theatre. In years prior, it’s been everything from a LaFerrari duelling a Leyton House F1 car on an expressway, to a V8 Supercar shredding tires around a multi-level carpark.

But this year? They went to extraordinary feats.

With the 2025 Adelaide Motorsport Festival shaping up to be the largest and most diverse celebration of speed the Southern Hemisphere has ever seen - our very own Goodwood with Aussie flair - the promotional campaign needed to send a message; and a bold one at that.

And so, under the cloak of night and a veil of secrecy, two of the most ridiculous machines on the planet were unleashed onto the city streets.

On a warm Monday evening, as the sun began to dip behind the eucalyptus-draped Parklands, a peculiar energy stirred in the city. While office workers filtered out and restaurants welcomed their dinner crowds, a select group assembled on the Adelaide Street Circuit’s infamous Senna Chicane.

This wasn’t a media circus. This was a closed-door, invitational operation, with fewer than 30 people. Hillside Auto was lucky enough to be the only media outlet granted full access to document what would be one of the most surreal promotional stunts in recent automotive history.

As our team chatted with key AMF personnel and mechanics ran through their final system checks, the machines were brought into the soft glow of the evening. The Bugatti Bolide, a black-and-blue alien spaceship of a car, rolled out of its transporter like a cybernetic predator. One-of-one in Australia. A track monster built for downforce and devastation, not traffic lights and tramlines.

And then came the thunder.

The Jaguar R2 Formula One car, an early-2000s Cosworth V10 screamer, clattered to life with a bark that echoed around the treelined park and made passersby freeze. It last competed over two decades ago but has since found its place at the AMF. On this night, it was ready to wake the dead, and a few city commuters.

Just after 8.30pm, motorbike-mounted police ceased nearby traffic, allowing the convoy to roll out under lights and sirens. Leading the way: a beautifully specced BMW M4 Competition Cabriolet rigged with cameras, courtesy of Adelaide BMW. Behind it? Motoring absurdity.

The route was carefully plotted to thread through the beating heart of Adelaide: from Victoria Park, straight up Wakefield St to go on to complete two laps of the vibrant Victoria Square before returning down Wakefield to speed back onto the Adelaide GP Circuit.

Even as the Bolide and R2 hummed (or screamed) through the city, onlookers were none the wiser. Phones came out as cars scrambled to pull over. Pedestrians turned, stunned, unsure whether they were witnessing a film shoot, hallucination, or miracle.

The Bolide cut an extraterrestrial silhouette under the city’s streetlamps; it’s distinctive tail lights reminiscent of Star Wars’ X-Wings. The Jaguar, meanwhile, cracked and popped like a war zone, its Cosworth V10 revving to 18,000rpm as it echoed through the urban canyon of the CBD. It wasn’t just noise. It was an ear-shattering orchestra, an otherworldly occurrence of ascension that imitated the screams of a feral animal.

From tram stops to apartment balconies, jaws dropped. No one expected this. Because no one knew.

Within 10 minutes, the convoy was back at its launch point. While the event didn’t run entirely smoothly; the Jaguar suffered anti-stall issues at low speeds and the Bolide came close to overheating, the AMF had done what they had hoped. Stunned onlookers started to close in on the site, as the faint scent of race fuel lingered in the air.

AMF’s social channels posted a cryptic, edited teaser. It didn’t say what had happened-only that it had. The internet did the rest.

In the days that followed, motoring forums lit up. “Was that a Bolide I saw in Victoria Square?” “F1 car in the East End?!?” Speculation became buzz, and buzz became hype. And that’s precisely the point.

This was quite possibly the most unbelievable spectacle that Adelaide had seen. The juxtaposed scene saw the sleepy South Australian capital be on the global stage. A Bugatti Bolide; one of the most anticipated machines of recent years, had never been seen on public roads before. In fact, Adelaide’s resident Bug was only the fourth Bolide to have been delivered in the world. To have it alongside a screaming V10 Jaguar F1 was something no one could have ever predicted, making it a winning formula for worldwide virality.