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

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Bugatti Veyron Legends Edition Black Bess isn't exactly subtle

The Bugatti Veyron Legend editions may do nothing to alter the Grand Sport Vitesse's already prodigious performance, but buyers appear to love them. Four special models have been unveiled so far, and Bugatti has sold out of all of them. At the 2014 Beijing Motor Show, the automaker has introduced the fifth Legend - the Black Bess.
Unlike the previous models, this Legend is inspired by a specific car, rather than a person. Black Bess was the name of a Bugatti Type 18 owned by famous French aviator Roland Garros. With seven examples built from 1912 to 1914, the 18 was a supercar in its time. It sported a 99-horspower, 5.0-liter four-cylinder engine and could reach 100 miles per hour. While paltry today, it was amazing performance by contemporary standards.
The modern Black Bess packs the Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse's 1,184-hp, quad-turbo W16 engine, and it wears rich, black paint with 24-carat gold accents. The interior has a combination of beige, brown and red leather, but its real showpieces are the hand-painted leather door panels that depict the Type 18 and Roland Garros' plane.

Mullin Museum closing after 14 years showcasing amazing vehicles

More sad news to start the year is that the Mullin Automotive Museum in Oxnard, California, is closing in two weeks. Founder Peter Merlin opened the museum in 2010 with a mission "to educate guests about 20th-century French automotive styling and design." This was done beautifully — literally and figuratively — with a focus on vehicles spanning from the Brass Era (1896-1915) to the early postwar period, some taken from Peter Mullins' personal collection. The heavy focus was on French automakers during the interwar period, Art Deco to the Machine Age (1918-1941), namely, Bugatti, Delage, Delahaye, Talbot-Lago, and Voisin, supported with automobilia, sculpture, a theater, and archives.    A lot of enthusiasts might not be familiar with the museum, but the fingerprints of founder Peter Mullin and wife Merle can be found throughout the car world. Peter, who died last September, had amassed the world's largest private collection of Bugattis. Back when a $40 million vehicle sale was enough to be crowned a record sum, Mullin opened his museum with the display of the record-breaking 1936 Bugatti 57SC Atlantic, on loan from the purchaser. He won Best in Show at the 2011 Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance with his own 1934 Voisin C-25 Aerodyne. The museum put on the shows you'd expect of a private Bugatti collector, like Art of Bugatti in 2014; shows you'd expect of a Francophile institution, like "Citroen: The Man, The Marque, The Mystique" in 2017; and surprises like last year's "ArTexture" exhibit of fine art and tapestries by artist Keith Collins. And he was one of the founding board members of the Petersen Automotive Museum, helping the museum through the renovation that turned it into one of the coolest car spots in LA.     Speaking of which, four of Mullins' personal rides will go on permanent display at the Petersen: a 1937 Talbot-Lago T150 CS “Teardrop,” a 1938 Delahaye 145, a 1938 Hispano Suiza H6B Dubonnet Xenia, and a 1939 Delahaye 165. The museum is only open on Saturdays and Sundays, its last day open being Saturday, February 10 — leaving three more visits for anyone who can make it. Said Merle, who continued keep sharing the collection at shows from Amelia Island to Villa d'Este during Peter's illness, wrote in a statement on the closing, "Sharing these ‘rolling sculpturesÂ’ and beautiful art with others was PeterÂ’s truest passion, and the museum helped bring that vision to life.

Bugatti has just eight Veyrons left to sell

Hard as it may be to believe, it has now been nearly a decade since Bugatti first introduced the Veyron back in 2005. And in the ten years since, the Alsatian marque has sold 442 of the seven-figure hypercars, leaving just eight roadsters still left up for grabs before one of the most impressive feats of engineering in the history of the automobile roars off into the sunset. Production of the Veyron was initially pegged at 300 coupes, but its life was extended by another 150 roadsters with the introduction of the Grand Sport in 2008. The last of the Veyron coupes (including the more powerful Super Sport model that followed) came to a close in September 2011, but production of the remaining Grand Sport and Vitesse roadsters has soldiered on since – and will continue until those final eight units have left the factory in Molsheim. If it's taken Bugatti over nine years to build the first 442 examples at a rate of about one per week, it should take about another two months to complete those final eight examples – that is, once production of outstanding orders are completed, and orders for the remaining examples are placed. Considering it's taken nearly five months to sell the previous seven examples, Bugatti might have to do what Bugatti does and roll out some special farewell edition to move those last few examples off the line. The bigger question, though, is What comes next? With development of the succeeding Chiron reportedly pushed back, there's been talk of one last hurrah for the outgoing Veyron in the form of an even more extreme speedster of sorts. But as Car magazine reports, after speaking to Bugatti CEO Wolfgang Durheimer at the launch of the company's merchandise boutique in London, the company will soon need to get down to the business of putting together the pre-production prototypes for the Chiron with its anticipated 1,500 horsepower and even more impressive performance. One way or another, we're not expecting a lot of down time at the French workshop in between production runs. Featured Gallery Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Wei Long 2012 News Source: CarImage Credit: Bugatti Plants/Manufacturing Bugatti Car Buying Supercars Bugatti Chiron