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The legend lives on in Bugatti Black Bess promo clip

To this year's Beijing Motor Show, Bugatti showed up with a special Veyron called Black Bess. It's the fifth in a series of six Legend editions that pay homage to a figure from the Alsatian marque's considerable history - in this case legendary French aviator Roland Garros. Now it's released a promo video showing off the stunning (if mechanically unaltered) black Vitesse roadster.
Not that Bugatti will need any help selling the Black Bess edition, of which only three will be made. Despite their $3 million price tags, Bugatti has sold every one of the previous four Legend runs, helping it move those last examples of the legendary Veyron before it can move on to the next chapter in its history.
Like any other Vitesse, the Black Bess edition packs a 6.0-liter, quad-turbo W16 engine driving 1,184 horsepower to all four wheels. What sets this special edition apart is the lustrous black paint, 24-carat gold accents and uniquely decorated cream leather interior with historic story-boards of classic Bugatti T18 and airplanes on the door panels. All of which may strike you as rather silly, but makes for a rather stunning vehicle highlighted in the video below.

Bugatti looks back at how how it developed the W16 engine

As the end of the Chiron's production run nears, Bugatti is taking a look back at the W16 engine that has powered its cars since it returned to the scene nearly 20 years ago. The engine is relatively compact, hugely powerful, and it has helped the firm set several world records. Former Volkswagen boss Ferdinand Karl Piech knew that successfully reviving Bugatti required building a car that stood out from everything else on the road at the time. He initially planned to power the then-upcoming Veyron with an 18-cylinder engine and sketched it out on an envelope while riding on a high-speed train from Tokyo to Osaka in Japan in 1997. His concept later became a 16-cylinder engine, but dropping a pair of cylinders didn't make the unit easier to develop. Bugatti engineers started from scratch in order to make the W16 a reality. "We had to engage in basic development for every component; every vehicle part had to be constructed anew and tested — even the engine test bench. The only thing we didn't change was the pencils we used for drawing," said former Bugatti head of technical development Gregor Gries. The initial goal was to launch the Veyron with over 1,000 horsepower, and even some insiders doubted that this could be achieved. Bugatti pulled it off: The Veyron entered production in 2005 with a quad-turbocharged, 8.0-liter W16 engine rated at 1,000 horsepower and 922 pound-feet of torque. Horsepower increased to 1,200 in the Veyron Super Sport, and the Chiron inaugurated a new version of the engine rated at 1,500 horsepower thanks in part to bigger turbos, though the Chiron Super Sport offers a 1,600-horsepower output. Engineers faced several significant challenges during the Veyron's development process. Getting the W16 to make 1,000 horsepower wasn't one; it broke the symbolic barrier the first time it was put on a test bench in 2001. Keeping its temperature in check required designing a massive cooling system that takes over 10 gallons of coolant and installing a titanium exhaust system. With the engine ready to go, Bugatti turned its attention to creating a car capable of coping with 1,000 horsepower, both in terms of comfort and in terms of aerodynamics. "Back then, there was no literature or empirical data for production engines with more than 12 cylinders or for production vehicles that could go faster than 217 mph," said Karl-Heinz Neumann, Volkswagen's former head of engine development.

Delivering a one-off Bugatti Veyron Vitesse

The Veyron is nearing the end of its production run, at the end of which Bugatti will have built only 450 examples. Of those, only 150 will be roadsters, and of those roadsters, even fewer will be the Vitesse version that combines the best attributes of the Grand Sport and Super Sport models. And with a virtually endless array of color choices, no two ever need be alike (safe for the Legend editions, each of which Bugatti will only build three examples). Yet certain examples have received extra-special treatments, and that's just what we have here.
Called the L'Or Style edition, this Vitesse roadster features a similar treatment to the L'Or Blanc edition, but in red and black instead of blue and white. Which is all well and fine, but what we're really interested in here is how it's being delivered. Because while it may seem like Bugatti's created another "one of a kind" Veyron every other day, it's not every day that you see how the logistics of delivering a $3 million supercar are handled.
Fortunately, the Symbolic Motors group that includes in its portfolio the Bugatti San Diego franchise and which handled the sale of this particular Veyron, captured the delivery process on video. We'll let you watch for yourself to see just how painstaking the process (even just that part caught on video) is - complete with wood-floored transporter truck, intake-perforated protective wrap and wheel spoke guards - but suffice it to say it's a bit more coddling than your average dealership delivery.