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Somebody sideswiped Tracy Morgan's Bugatti Veyron right after he bought it

Tracy Morgan was again involved in a headline-making car accident this week. Luckily, it was nowhere near as dangerous as his previous crash, and nobody was injured. His just-purchased Bugatti Veyron, however, sustained minor damage from a Honda CR-V sideswiping Morgan. Nearly five years to the date after he was seriously injured from a Walmart truck crash, Morgan was forced to file another police report for a wreck. This time, however, it occurred at low speeds in New York City and was much less serious. The accident took place in Hell's Kitchen and occurred just 15 minutes after Morgan bought the used 2012 Bugatti Veyron at Manhattan Motorcars, according to TMZ. His response was expectedly filled with anger: Video from the scene shows Morgan banging on the other car's window and complaining he'd just bought his new Bugatti (?: itsfraufrau via Instagram) pic.twitter.com/qtgCUmDF1U — BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) June 4, 2019 Morgan is seen slapping the window of the CR-V and yelling, "B****, get out the car!" Once he cooled down, he tweeted that he was "totally fine." Thanks for any concern but I am totally fine. My NEW CAR? We shall see. Love you all. — Tracy Morgan (@TracyMorgan) June 4, 2019 The reports do not specify exactly who was at fault, but the photos show the CR-V angled into Morgan's supercar. The Veyron took most of the damage on its driver-side front quarter panel. View this post on Instagram A post shared by WhatIsNewYork (@whatisnewyork) on Jun 4, 2019 at 10:47am PDT Because the sale was so fresh, the Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport is still listed on the Manhattan Motorcars website. The Pearl-over-Cognac Veyron had only 1,679 miles on it at the time of purchase, and it was listed for $1,890,000. We're not sure if that value will go up because it was owned by Morgan or down because it's now been involved in an accident. News Source: The Drive, @J_Mosk, TMZ Auto News Celebrities Weird Car News Bugatti Luxury Performance Supercars supercar

How an 18-cylinder engine and the Porsche 917 shaped the Bugatti Veyron

On the surface, Volkswagen's resurrection of Bugatti looks like one of the many chess-like moves made in its bold quest to expand its portfolio of brands during the late 1990s. In a way, it was; branching out into new segments motivated executives to buy a once-venerated French brand that hadn't made a car in years. On a secondary level, the acquisition allowed one man to fulfill his dream of developing the world's most prestigious car. Bugatti opened its archives to tell the story of how its first 21st-century car, the Veyron, was born.  Ferdinand Karl Piech (1937-2019), a brilliant engineer who rose to the top of the Volkswagen Group during a long and illustrious career, sketched out an 18-cylinder engine in 1997, on the back of an envelope, while riding the bullet train between Tokyo and Nagoya. It consisted of three VR6 cylinder banks separated by 60 degrees and tuned to deliver 555 horsepower. The 6.25-liter engine was naturally aspirated and envisioned for high-end luxury cars -- the kind that would make Mercedes-Benz (who also experimented with an 18-cylinder engine) blush. There was one big problem: Volkswagen Group didn't have a suitable car to put it in. Rolls-Royce would have been an option, but BMW unexpectedly ended up with the name (though not the factory nor the Spirit of Ecstasy) after a bitter bidding war. Although Volkswagen had bagged Bentley, Piech set his mind to buying the dormant Bugatti brand, which belonged to Italian entrepreneur Romano Artioli, after Piech's son gave him a model of a Type 57 SC Atlantic while vacationing in Majorca. He talked Volkswagen's financial department into clearing the funds needed to buy the brand right after he returned to Germany, and the transaction was completed in 1998. With an engine and a name, Piech set the ball rolling. Italidesign's Giorgetto Giugiaro designed the EB118 concept in a matter of months and presented it to the public at the 1998 edition of the Paris Auto Show. It arrived as a front-engined coupe powered by the Austrian engineer's 18-cylinder engine. Several concepts followed: the EB218 shown at the 1999 Geneva Motor Show explored what a Bugatti sedan could look like, the EB18/3 Chiron introduced that same year moved the brand in a sportier direction, and the EB18/4 Veyron brought the idea of a modern-day hypercar much closer to production. It's this design study that received the green light for production.

Bugatti will stop chasing speed records to focus on 'other areas'

Bugatti made international headlines when it became the first automaker to break the 300-mph barrier. The French firm won't return to the Ehra-Lessien track in Germany to try beating its 304-mph record, because it's done chasing speed records for good. "This was the last time for us," affirmed company boss Stephan Winkelmann during a short speech filmed in the company's factory. "From now on, our minds and our focus will stay on different projects," he added. He stopped short of delivering details about the projects he has in mind. Bugatti's retirement doesn't come as a surprise; the company had started to shy away from setting speed records after it released the Chiron. At the time, its lost interest came as a surprise, because it had made history on several occasions by reaching jaw-dropping speeds with the Veyron. The 267-mph Super Sport variant of the car held the coveted title of the world's fastest car for years. The company spent much of 2019 celebrating its 110th birthday with special cars like the one-off La Voiture Noire unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show, and the limited-edition Centodieci first shown at The Quail, a Motorsports Gathering in California. While it won't continue releasing two special projects annually in the foreseeable future, Bugatti will keep the momentum going in the coming years. "One thing is for sure: we will have a great future," Winkelmann concluded. Time will tell whether it involves a long-tail Chiron variant inspired by the record-breaking car, a long-rumored SUV, or something else entirely.