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Bugatti Chiron, Bolide are sold out after record-setting 2021

Bugatti yelled "last call!" for the Chiron in October 2021. If you didn't get your name added to the list then, it's too late: The French company announced that, after a record-breaking 2021, the final build slots have been spoken for. The track-focused Bolide is sold out as well. Like sister companies Porsche and Lamborghini, Bugatti enjoyed the most successful year in 2021 since its inception. It received 150 orders, which is remarkable considering that all of its cars carry a six-digit price tag before options enter the equation, and 60% of those orders came from first-time buyers. That number includes the roughly 40 Chiron build slots that were available at the end of 2021 and 40 units of the Bolide. What this means, then, is that you can no longer order a new Bugatti. Every example of the Divo has been delivered, the one-off La Voiture Noire is in the hands of its anonymous owner, and deliveries of the sold-out, EB110-inspired Centodieci will start in 2022. The firm isn't taking a year off, though. It plans to build and deliver 80 cars in 2022 while presumably working on writing the next chapter in its long history. It's too early to tell what will take the torch from the Chiron. Bugatti merged with Croatia-based Rimac in July 2021. While Rimac is known for building EVs, Bugatti's next hypercar won't necessarily run on batteries. Company founder Mate Rimac confirmed that pistons will live on. "I'm a car guy. We will not just recycle what we have — not restyle the Chiron or hybridize the Chiron. We're developing a completely new product from the ground up. Everything, because we think that's the best way to go. That product will have an internal combustion engine," Rimac affirmed in July 2021. Until then, the quickest (and cheapest) way to put a Bugatti in your garage is to order an electric scooter. Related video:

Bugatti expands way downmarket with an electric scooter

Tales of an entry-level Bugatti have spewed out of the rumor mill for years, but none predicted that the vehicle would have two wheels. The company teamed with Bytech to release an electric scooter that makes the Bugatti name accessible to a much wider audience. Built around a magnesium-alloy frame, the 35-pound scooter is powered by a 700-watt motor that gives it a top speed of 18.5 mph. Clearly, this is not a Chiron, though it wasn't designed to be one. Note that the aforementioned velocity can only be reached when the rider selects a mode called Sport. Leave it in Economy mode and you'll max out at 9 mph; City unlocks 12.5 mph. Cruise control comes standard, and Bugatti notes its scooter is capable of riding up a 15-degree slope and carrying 242 pounds. The battery stores enough electricity for about 22 miles of range. It can be removed, and charging it takes four hours when using a household outlet. For context, one of the many unlikely entrants into the electric scooter arena is MV Agusta, an Italian company more commonly associated with high-performance, race-ready motorcycles. Its scooter (which is described as "the Italian stallion of the e-scooter world") weighs 44 pounds, has a 25-mph top speed, and can carry riders weighing up to 220 pounds. The 500-watt motor delivers 18 pound-feet of torque. Design-wise, it's a, well ... a scooter. You didn't think it would borrow styling cues from the Divo, did you? There's a Bugatti emblem on the front end, and the front turn signals are positioned on the outer parts of the handlebar for better visibility. LED strips illuminate the bottom part of the riding platform, while a rear-mounted light projects Bugatti's "EB" logo onto the ground. Just like in a Bugatti car, you'll be seen.  We don't know when the Bugatti scooter will go on sale or how much it will cost. However, buyers will have three colors to choose from: Agile Blue, silver, and black. It's not quite the baby Chiron we were expecting, but it's a good conversation starter: "I got here with my Bugatti."

How to make Ettore Bugatti's favorite Christmas desserts

Ettore Bugatti's love for cars spawned the automaker that bears his name, but that's not the only passion that he turned into a business. He channeled his love for food into a restaurant called Clos Saint Odile in Obernai, a small town in the Alsatian countryside located not far from the Bugatti factory in Molsheim. It still exists, it's now called La Fourchette des Ducs, and it still makes some of Bugatti's favorites dishes. In 2020, Bugatti taught hungry enthusiasts how to cook a Christmas dinner like its founder; he served minestrone, blazed duck breast with truffle puree and cassis sauce, and strawberry gratin. In 2021, the French company is zooming in on desserts. La Fourchette des Ducs offers customers a cart with 15 desserts around the holidays, including one called Tarte Obernoise that Bugatti served at his wedding. The full recipe is posted on Bugatti's media site. It looks relatively simple: making the dough requires flour, sugar, butter, egg yolks, milk, and baking powder, while the filling consists of raspberry jam, egg whites, powdered sugar, and almond powder. It's more time-consuming than, say, opening a box of cake mix because the dough needs to rest for two hours, but at the end you'll be able to say that you made meringue.  If you're feeling ambitious or extra-hungry, Bugatti also provided the restaurant's recipe for hazelnut Kipferle (a croissant-shaped cookie). Making a batch is well within the average cook's reach. You'll need sugar, butter, sifted flour, hazelnut powder, vanilla pods, and cinnamon. If you're more interested in cars than food, you're out of luck: Bugatti hasn't shared how to assemble the Chiron's W16 engine.

Unique Bugatti Chiron Pur Sport shows off customizing program

It's strange, but there's really no shortage of incredible supercars to pick from nowadays. Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren, Pagani, Koenigsegg, Bugatti, Aston Martin and Porsche, among others, are continuously rolling out ever faster, rarer and more unusual supercars. And as a result, buyers want more than just a choice of paint and interior colors to pick from. They want unique color schemes to stand out from the other supercar owners. Automakers such as McLaren have learned this with programs like MSO, and now Bugatti is launching a service called Sur Mesure, which translates to "tailored." And its first customer car is the Bugatti Chiron Pur Sport GP Sur Mesure you see above. According to Bugatti, the car is a tribute to racing driver Louis Chiron, who won the 1931 French Grand Prix driving a Bugatti Type 51. The custom Chiron Pur Sport features the same style "32" on the outside and embroidered on the seat backs as Chiron's Type 51. That number is hand-painted on the doors, as are the "EB" logo patterns on the front and rear fenders. Based on photos of the paint process, it seems some intricate masking was used, requiring careful removal after painting. The exterior paint color is a new hue that was created to match that of 1930s Bugatti race cars. Inside, the Chiron Pur Sport is mostly black and red Alcantara. The most unique aspects are the door panels that feature the same type of "EB" pattern as on the fenders, but this time with embroidery. The car also gets black anodized aluminum trim panels with silver logos. No pricing was given for this one-off Bugatti, nor were any estimates for services given. This is likely because every project will be different depending on the customers' ideas, so the amount of time and cost will vary. Seeing as customers will be guided through the process and receive truly custom cars at the end, ones based on cars that already have seven-figure price tags, the costs must be mighty high. Related Video:

1 of 3 Bugatti EB112 super-sedans built is for sale

Bugatti has never strived to achieve volume, but some of its cars are rarer than others. One is the EB112, an obscure fastback-like sedan envisioned as a follow-up to the EB110, canned when the firm collapsed in 1995, and resurrected by a third-party company in the late 1990s. Historians agree that three examples of the EB112 were built, and the second one has been listed for sale by a dealer in Germany. Presented as a concept at the 1993 edition of the Geneva auto show, the EB112 represented one of the ways that Italian entrepreneur Romano Artioli hoped to breathe new life into the storied French carmaker. It took the form of a large, four-door super-sedan with an aluminum body and a naturally-aspirated, 6.0-liter V12 tuned to send about 460 horsepower to the four wheels via a five-speed manual transmission. It offered passengers an interior that was luxurious without being over-the-top. In short, the modern-day Royale had arrived. Bugatti quoted a 0-62-mph time of 4.3 seconds, which was remarkable considering the era and the car's weight, and a top speed of 186 mph. Orders started coming in, but Bugatti filed for bankruptcy in September 1995 and the project was canceled. It closed its factory in Campogalliano, Italy, leaving behind 128 examples of the EB110 and one EB112, but the story doesn't end there: two additional EB112s were left partially assembled inside the so-called Blue Factory. Gildo Pallanca Pastor bought some of the company's assets and asked the Monaco Racing Team to complete the unfinished cars, according to dealer Schaltkulisse. The car that it's selling is the first one of those. Schaltkulisse notes that chassis number 39002 was ordered on April 27, 1993, by Bugatti's Swiss importer and delivered in February 2000. It has been registered in Geneva since 2003 and its odometer displays around 3,900 kilometers, which represents approximately 2,500 miles. It's presented as a one-owner car that's still powered by a front-mid-mounted 6.0-liter V12. Pricing is only available upon request, but don't expect this fascinating part of Bugatti's multi-faceted history to come cheap. We wouldn't be surprised if it costs more than a new Chiron. Related Video:

Bugatti begins winding down Chiron production

Bugatti's stunningly powerful Chiron has almost reached the end of the line. While the standard model is sold out, there are still some Pur Sport and Super Sport build slots available for buyers who want to add the hypercar to their collection before it sprints off into the sunset. Developed to replace the Veyron, the Chiron was unveiled at the 2016 edition of the Geneva auto show with a 1,500-horsepower, quad-turbocharged W16 engine mounted behind the passenger compartment. Deliveries started in March 2017, and the 100th unit was delivered to a customer in the Middle East in May of the following year. Bugatti reached the 250-car milestone in February 2020, and it built the 300th Chiron in March 2021. It said that the final examples of the Chiron and the Chiron Sport are either being built or scheduled to be built. What's left, then, are less than 40 build slots split between the Pur Sport and the Super Sport (pictured) variants, though Bugatti told Autoblog some of those are slotted for production but haven't been configured yet. The curtains will close when the final units are built.  There's no word yet on how long it will take to fill the remaining build slots; Bugatti stressed that demand for the Chiron has increased significantly in 2021. Sales doubled and even tripled in some regions during the third quarter of the year. As for what's next, your guess is as good as ours. Bugatti is now controlled by Rimac so rumors sketching the outline of an electric model are rampant, though nothing is official. We've also heard vague details about a second model line, one that could slot below the Chiron, but those reports also remain speculative. What's certain is that something will take the torch from the Chiron. "We will not just recycle what we have — not restyle the Chiron or hybridize the Chiron. We're developing a completely new product from the ground up. Everything, because we think that's the best way to go. That product will have an internal combustion engine," said Mate Rimac. In the meantime, Bugatti's factory will stay reasonably busy: the French brand will soon launch production of the EB110-inspired Centodieci, which is limited to 10 examples, and it's planning to build 40 units of the Bolide, a track-only two-seater that weighs less than a Subaru BRZ. Related Video:

Bugatti's EB110-inspired Centodieci is one hot step closer to production

Bugatti's heritage-inspired Centodieci is related to the Chiron, but it's different enough to require its own set of validation tests. After taking on the Nurburgring, the limited-edition hypercar was put through its paces in the scorching heat of the American Southwest's deserts. "Testing in the hot, dry desert is a huge help for us in the development process," explained Stefan Schmidt, an engineer in Bugatti's overall vehicle development department. "Every model has to run flawlessly in all weather and in all traffic conditions," he added. With no less than 27 engineers in tow, the Bugatti team started the hot-weather test in California and meandered east for about 500 miles until it reached Arizona, where temperatures sometimes climb to over 120 degrees. The convoy included eight cars: a Centodieci prototype, three examples of the Chiron Pur Sport, and four examples of the Chiron Super Sport. Each one was fitted with approximately 200 sensors that record various parameters that get sent to the engineers traveling with the convoy and to the development team in Wolfsburg, Germany. Heat takes a toll on cars in normal driving conditions, but Bugatti went the extra mile to torture its prototypes. It subjected them to low-speed stop-and-go traffic, it reached nearly 200 mph (on a closed track, of course), and it left them sitting in the sun with the air conditioning on. The aim is to see how different components (ranging from the fuel delivery system to the materials used to build the cabin) hold up to extreme heat. The data gathered during the tests was compared to the numbers obtained through simulations to identify areas of concern. Taking the Centodieci to the American desert was important; it's notably fitted with an additional air intake near the oil cooler. "The Centodieci's newly-developed bodywork, airflow changes, and its engine bay cover manufactured from glass mean the temperature behavior is quite different, especially in such extreme heat conditions," said Andre Kullig, the manager of few-off projects at Bugatti. The firm notes that the Centodieci passed the hot-weather tests with flying colors. It has one final hurdle to clear before it enters production: nearly 20,000 miles of high-speed and endurance testing in Europe. When that's over and everything checks out, the project will be signed off and production of the 10 examples planned will begin in Molsheim, France. Deliveries should start in 2022, and the model is sold out.

Audi CEO says brand's EVs are almost as profitable as its other cars

After, oh, a hundred years or so of building vehicles primarily powered by internal combustion engines, automakers around the world have been and still are pumping billions of dollars into the development of electric vehicle technology. Everything from platforms and batteries to motors and the software to control it all requires untold hours of development, and that takes time and money. Fortunately, it's not going to take long for that massive investment to start paying off, at least according to Audi CEO Markus Duesmann, who told Reuters in an interview that "The point where we earn as much money with electric cars as with combustion engine cars is now, or ... next year, 2023. They are very even now, the prices." As a brand, Audi contributed more than a quarter of overall profit for the massive Volkswagen Group, which has such powerhouse brands as Volkswagen and Porsche among others. Under the Audi umbrella are Lamborghini, Bentley and Ducati, and it seems those high-end branches aren't going anywhere, at least for now. "These brands ... are very valuable very profitable brands, where we can even expand the synergy level in the future," Duesmann said in the interview. "There are no plans whatsoever to get rid of them." Despite the overall profitability of the brand, the ongoing global chip crisis is causing headaches. "We had a very strong first half in 2021. We do expect a much weaker second half," said Duesmann, who added, "We really have trouble." In fact, so serious is the trouble that the brand is forced into "a day-to-day troubleshooting process" to limit the chip-shortage damage. The good news for the automaker is that Audi has been able to boost its profit margin from 8% prior to the pandemic in 2019 to 10.7% in the first half of 2021. The bad news is that various chip shortages aren't expected to get a whole lot better over the rest of the year. Related video:

Volkner Performance S is an RV with a Bugatti in its belly

Going on a long road trip in a Bugatti Chiron is easier said than done: There are a lot of things to love about the hypercar, but cargo space isn't one of them. German recreational vehicle (RV) manufacturer Volkner has a solution in the form of a big, bus-like motorhome with enough space between its front and rear wheels to house a Chiron. Volkner's Performance S looks just like a regular motorhome when you're stuck behind it in traffic. It's as big and as boxy as a tour bus, and its front end features antenna-like mirrors. It's what's inside the box that's impressive. The panel between the front and rear passenger-side wheels flips up to reveal a car-sized metal tray that slides out from the underbody. Controlled by a wired remote, it's big enough to hold a 178.9-inch long and 80.2-inch wide Chiron. Volkner Performance S View 3 Photos It's unclear whether Volkner made structural reinforcements to its motorhome in order to accommodate; the space the Chiron sleeps in is normally reserved for lighter items such as luggage. And, while most promotional material shows a Bugatti emerging from the RV's belly, anything that's smaller than a Chiron fits; one of the firm's images depicts a Porsche 911 parked in the storage space. Don't try to park a Toyota 4Runner under there, however. Inside, the Performance S looks like a five-star hotel, and it's bigger than many college dorm rooms. It boasts leather-upholstered seats, cabinets made with real wood, and LED lighting, among other features. Posh vacationers can work directly with the brand to configure an interior that suits their needs. If you splurged on a Chiron, you may as well order your RV with a Burmester surround-sound system that costs nearly ˆ300,000 (about $355,000). Volkner charges around ˆ2 for the Performance S, which represents approximately $2.3 million at the current conversion rate. Bugatti priced the Chiron at around $2.9 million, so the full package is worth over $5 million. Related video:

Rimac CEO on Porsche-Bugatti deal: ‘I am not somebody to play it safe’

'We are already developing stuff that will be soon in high-volume Porsches'