2011 Bugatti Veyron 16.4 8.0l "bleu Nuit" Grand Sport 315 Miles, One Owner on 2040-cars

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Bugatti fully restores the first Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport prototype

Bugatti proved a car doesn't need wire wheels and a carburetor to be considered a classic by restoring an important part of its recent heritage. It purchased and renovated the first Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport prototype from 2008. Finished in white silver metallic with a cognac leather interior, the topless hypercar was presented to enthusiasts at the 2008 edition of the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. It joined the Bugatti fleet after its champagne-soaked debut and became an unregistered demo car that logged miles in Europe, the Middle East, and North America. It then presumably ended up in private hands, and it largely fell off the radar until Bugatti spotted it in 2020. "Following the official confirmation of the car's status as an important historic model and the prototype that helped launch the Veyron Grand Sport in 2008, the car rapidly attracted attention from a number of captivated collectors, and it was acquired almost immediately," explained Luigi Galli, the man in charge of La Maison Pur Sang, Bugatti's in-house restoration and certification program. He added the firm keeps details about past models in its archives. Back in Molsheim, the picturesque French town where Bugatti's headquarters are located, the Veyron underwent a four-month restoration that brought it back to its 2008 configuration. The body panels were removed and repainted, the cabin was completely refurbished with leather upholstery and aluminum trim pieces, and a new center console was installed. There's no word on whether the quad-turbocharged 16-cylinder engine required an overhaul as well. Bugatti's in-house restoration expertise extends far beyond relatively new cars like a Veyron. It has access to a wide range of documents, blueprints, period photos, and experts that can help it piece together a car's history, regardless of whether it's a 13-year old prototype or a dismantled 100-year old race car stashed in a barn since the 1980s. Related video:

2017 Bugatti Chiron gets EPA fuel economy rating

There's no doubting that the new Bugatti Chiron is a beautiful marriage of beauty and brawn. But for a cool $2.998 million there are, shall we say, more practical supercars (stop laughing) to whisk you to Davos or South Beach. Put simply, the Chiron's fuel-economy ratings, released Thursday by the Environmental Protection Agency, are absurd. Sure, the 1,500-horsepower roadster's quad-turbocharged, 8.0-liter 16-cylinder engine delivers 1,180 foot-pounds of torque, has a top speed of 261 mph and does 0-to-60 in 2.3 seconds (watch it run up to 218 mph, here). Certainly impressive. But there's a tradeoff: a measly 11 miles per gallon in combined city and highway driving. That's 9 mpg in the city and a whopping 14 on the highway. That equates to an estimated annual fuel cost of $3,800, averaging $6.26 in gasoline — premium gasoline, no less — for every 25 miles driven. With a 9.1-gallon fuel tank, you'd be hard pressed, while zooming down the PCH or Autobahn, to squeeze out 100 miles before you'd need to find a filling station. Still, it's a slight upward tick from the Bugatti Veyron, which the EPA rated at 10 mpg combined. Bugatti says the W16 engine represents a 25 percent increase in performance compared to its predecessor, with nearly every single part of the engine examined and newly developed. Included are four turbochargers that are 69 percent larger than on the discontinued Veyron. Somehow we doubt that the miserly fuel economy ratings will hurt the supercar's prestige. Back in November, Bugatti design director Achim Anscheidt told Autoblog that the Chiron's uber-exclusive clientele owns an average of 42 cars in their impossible-to-imagine garages (plus 1.7 jets and 1.4 yachts, to boot). With that many hot wheels, it's safe to say the Chiron wouldn't rack up the miles too quickly. Related Video: Featured Gallery Bugatti Chiron: First Drive View 67 Photos News Source: EPAImage Credit: Bugatti By the Numbers Green Motorsports Bugatti Fuel Efficiency Luxury Performance Supercars Bugatti Chiron

Watch a Bugatti Chiron Sport race a French Navy fighter jet

Bugatti is done chasing speed records, but it's finding other ways to demonstrate what the Chiron's mighty W16 engine is capable of. It brought a Sport model to a naval base in France and put it head-to-head against a jet. On paper, the comparison is hardly fair. Driven by Pierre-Henri Raphanel, a former pilot who is now Bugatti's official driver, the Chiron Sport is powered by a quad-turbocharged engine rated at 1,500 horsepower. Made by Dassault, the Rafale jet boasts about 5,700 horsepower, though its dry weight checks in at around 22,700 pounds. And yet, after the flag drops, the Chiron races ahead of the Rafale for the first few hundred yards. Its lead doesn't last long; Raphanel explained the Rafale quickly caught up and took off. Looking at the plane's specifications sheet reveals it begins to leave the ground at 161 mph after sprinting for approximately 450 yards. Once it's airborne, it's gone. It's capable of reaching the speed of sound (Mach 1.6; 1,227 mph). Even with 16 cylinders, the Chiron isn't quite that fast; test driver Andy Wallace set a land speed record in 2019 by driving a longtail model to 304.7 mph. Slowing down both machines is easier said than done. The runway the Chiron and the Rafale raced on was relatively short, so Raphanel began braking at over 217 mph after accelerating for about a mile. The air brake integrated into the rear end helps scrub off speed without undue drama. Landing the Rafale safely requires a complex system that includes 10 pistons, a special anti-skid system, heat shields to protect the wheels, and nitrogen-filled tires. It approaches the runway at about 155 mph and comes to a full stop in around 150 yards. Bugatti brought the recently-introduced Les Legendes du Ciel version of the Chiron to the race. It's a limited-edition model that highlights the little-known link between some of the firm's earliest race cars and aviation with special graphics and specific trim pieces, among other details. While it initially looks like the sketch of a plane on the door panel is all that joins the Rafale and the Chiron, the connection is a little deeper: the jet's brakes were developed by Messier-Bugatti, a company now known as Safran Landing Systems that shares common roots with the carmaker.