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Bugatti enters the car-branded hookah market

Ever look at the price of a new Veyron and wonder what they're smoking over in Molsheim? Heck, that latest special edition Vitesse costs nearly $3 million, and that's before taxes and delivery. Well, we've got the answer right here. It's a shisha pipe - the kind smoked in bedouin tents and cafés frequented by Middle Eastern gentlemen the world over - and it's branded by Bugatti.
The pipe is hand-crafted from titanium and carbon fiber (instead of the usual glass and steel) and stands about two and a half feet tall. It's made by a company called Desvall, which contrary to what you might think, is located not on the eastern or southern shores of the Mediterranean or along the Persian Gulf, but in Stockholm, Sweden.
And the price? A suitably Bugatti-like $100,000. That's a heck of a lot more than the already-outrageous $1,950 that Porsche Design gets for its shisha, which, let's face it, is basically a beautifully-crafted but overpriced water bong, to say nothing of what an average shisha would cost you in the bazaar. But we're sure there are some customers somewhere in the world who'd gladly pony up that amount to smoke a Bugatti pipe next to their Veyron in their lavishly appointed garage at the end of a sand-swept driveway. And Desvall only needs 150 of them, because that's all they're making.

Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport Vitesse is the same Bug with new paint

We typically wince any time a manufacturer rolls out a special edition that's little more than a coat of paint, but we'll make an exception in this case. Bugatti parked the Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport Vitesse on the lawn of the Quail Motorsports Gathering, resplendent in its Bianco and Light Blue livery. The paint scheme is a tribute to the 1928 Type 37A. That open-wheel racer took the checkered flag at a number of grand prix events and now finds itself in the loving care of none other than Jay Leno himself.
As with the rest of the Veyron Grand Sport models, the Vitesse can bolt to 62 mph from a dead stop in a physics-obliterating 2.6 seconds. The feat is possible thanks to a range of impressive mechanical systems, though the 1,200 horsepower forced-induction W16 at the heart of it certainly doesn't hurt. Check out the Vitesse in the gallery below and have a peek at the full press release as well.

Bugatti begins testing the most expensive new car ever sold

Bugatti has started testing the La Voiture Noire, a stunning one-off unveiled at the 2019 edition of the Geneva auto show. The coupe will be street-legal, so it needs to go through the same tests as a regular-production model. Photos posted on social media show what looks like a La Voiture Noire prototype undergoing a series of evaluations. It's getting sprayed by thousands of gallons of water to ensure it's water-tight, and it's being put through its paces at high speeds on a test track. Bugatti said it has invested over 65,000 engineering hours into the project. The effort put into fine-tuning the La Voiture Noire shows it's much more than merely a rebodied Chiron. While the two cars are mechanically related, the La Voiture Noire wears a specific design penned as a tribute to the Type 57 SC Atlantic built between 1936 and 1938, and all of its exterior panels are new. And yet, it needs to meet the same quality standards as a series-produced car, which explains why putting it on the road is easier said than done. That's also why an anonymous collector paid nearly $19 million including taxes and other fees for the right to own it. One of the Chiron-sourced bits underneath the body is Bugatti's mighty, 8.0-liter W16 engine. It relies on four turbos to develop 1,479 horsepower and 1,180 pound-feet of torque, and it spins the four wheels via a 7-speed automatic transmission. Performance specifications haven't been released yet, but there's no doubt it will be damn quick. Bugatti began delivering the Divo in 2020. It will send the La Voiture Noire to its enigmatic new home in 2021, and Centodieci deliveries are scheduled to start in 2022. Executives have often stated their intention to jump-start the coachbuilding industry, so we're hoping the brand releases additional one- and few-off projects in the coming years. Related Video: Bugatti Chiron Sport Les Legendes du Ciel revealed