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110 ans Bugatti Chiron is a red, white and blue anniversary special

Few cars on the planet are as exclusive at the Bugatti Chiron. The multi-million-dollar price tag is part of it, but there's also the simple fact that so few are made. The French automaker, currently owned by Volkswagen, was founded 110 years ago by Ettore Bugatti. To celebrate both the company's anniversary and its French heritage, Bugatti revealed a limited-edition version of last year's Chiron Sport, a more capable version of the Veyron's successor. The Chiron Sport simply refined an already bonkers model, cutting weight thanks to lightweight wheels, thinner glass and even more carbon fiber. The suspension and steering were re-tuned, too, though the 1,479-horsepower quad-turbocharged W16 engine was left untouched. The 110 ans Bugatti doesn't add any more performance, though it doesn't really need it anyway. For those discerning customers that want a Bugatti that corners, look no further than the Divo. The 110 ans Bugatti will be limited to just 20 examples. Though Bugatti doesn't mention it, all are likely spoken for. The car looks so French it's liable to play "La Marseillaise" every single time you open the door. The entire exterior has been painted a deep matte blue. The brake calipers are a brighter shade, reminiscent of French racing blue. The brightest and arguably best exterior touches are the French flag's red, white and blue tricolor bars on the mirrors, fuel door and rear wing. The latter is only visible when the movable wing is in it's up position. The leather interior is done up in the same shade as the exterior. Deep blue leather covers nearly every surface, though the seats and seatbelts are done in the same blue as the brake calipers. The seats themselves feature a tricolor stripe along the center, split in the headrest by a "110 ans Bugatti" logo. The steering wheel, too, gets a French flag in the top center of the rim. Related Video:

Sold-out Bugatti Centodieci honors the under-appreciated EB110

Bugatti traveled to Pebble Beach, California, to introduce a sold-out hypercar named Centodieci. The limited-edition model celebrates the company's 110th birthday (centodieci means one hundred and ten in Italian), while shedding light on a chapter of its history that's often left unexplored. The EB110 was unusually designed and manufactured in Italy, inconveniently far from Bugatti's historic home in Molsheim, but purposely close to Ferrari's Modena headquarters. It comes from the same era as the original Game Boy and R. L. Stine's Goosebumps series, so interpreting its key design cues on a Bugatti penned with an eye on the 2020s was easier said than done. It's shaped like a door stop, its headlights are mounted relatively close together, and its grille is almost comically small. "Those are the ingredients I had to cook something modern with," Achim Anscheidt, the company's head of design, told Autoblog. Blatantly copying the EB110 was out of the question, so his team put a modern spin on its defining features. The Centodieci doesn't need to be shown next to the original; it stands on its own. Pill-shaped lights and a metal panel with slots that give hot air a way to escape the engine bay dominate the EB110's rear end. The Centodieci is a prima donna when it comes to cooling, however, because it packs considerably more power than its spiritual predecessor. Working closely with Bugatti's research and development department, Anscheidt chose to vent the rear end's entire width, and use 3D lighting elements to replicate the cooling slots. This solution works well and channels both the base GT and the more hardcore SS variants of the EB110. Bugatti wrapped the head-turning body around Chiron underpinnings. It's made largely with carbon fiber to keep weight in check, and it's powered by an 8.0-liter W16 engine, quad-turbocharged to 1,600 horsepower at 7,000 rpm, a 100-horsepower increase over the Chiron. Part engine and part work of art, the 16-cylinder sends its power to the four wheels through a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission that can be left in drive, or shifted manually using steering wheel-mounted paddles. To add context, the EB110 used a quad-turbocharged, 3.5-liter V12 rated at 560 horsepower. It featured a six-speed manual transmission, and permanent all-wheel drive. The Centodieci hits 62 mph from a stop before you reach the end of this sentence; it takes 2.4 seconds.

Bugatti teases Chiron again, shows and tells us nothing

The television spots Infiniti released in the eighties for the original Q45 still carry the torch for arcane teaser commercials, but Bugatti might try to steal some of that light this year. The Franco-German automaker released a 41-second teaser video for the Chiron with quick-cut shots of just about everything except the supercar. The fighter jet, the volcano, even the guy running on top of the sideways skyscraper we get, since the tagline is "Breaking new dimensions." But the elevator and the drummer? We already know the rumor that it's going to break the Veyron Super Sport's terminal velocity, hitting something above 290 miles per hour. Continuing the theme of tweaks that advance the entire package, it's been reported that an analog speedometer will keep track of that vitesse with hash marks running all the way to 500 kilometers per hour, taking the place of the centrally-placed tachometer. Cabin ergonomics should take a step up, while a larger windshield will improve visibility, and the seating position moves outward to become more conventional. Oh, and since the car is named after French auto racer Louis Chiron and not the mythological Greek centaur, it is pronounced Shir-on, not Kai-ron. You can check out the latest teaser in the video above - at 41 seconds, the spot is about a second less than the time it took the standard Veyron to hit its top speed. Related Video: