The Car on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Special Edition Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport Vitesse sells for $2.5 million

Speculative investors should have held off on purchasing Facebook stock. Instead, they would have been wiser pooling resources for the Special Edition Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport Vitesse. The one-off supercar, with an asking price of $2.5 million, was shown at "The Quail: A Motorsports Gathering" at Pebble Beach over the weekend... and it was sold to an unnamed buyer before the ink on its seven-digit sticker had dried.
While a standard Vitesse will set someone back about $2.2 million, the Special Edition's $300,000 premium bought a host of cosmetic enhancements (the 1,200-horsepower quad-turbo W16 remains untouched) including a paint job specially prepared as a tribute to the 1928 Type 37A. The top half of the aluminum body is painted in Bianco while the lower half is New Light Blue. Inside the two-place cabin is custom-tailored Cognac leather with contrasting New Light Blue stitching, blue accents in the door handles and map pockets. Pictures don't do it justice.
Before you question a cosmetic upgrade costing more than the average new home, there are a few things to take into consideration. First, Bugatti has had no trouble selling more than 300 Veyrons to date, and as far as we can tell there has been zero depreciation on the secondary market for special one-off models. Second, there are less than 80 build slots left before production stops on what will eventually be considered one of the most extraordinary supercars of its era (and the Vitesse is a the top of the model range). Lastly, consider the interesting backstory about this particular white and blue vehicle.

Bugatti sitting on $85M stockpile of unsold Veyrons

There may be trouble brewing with the supercar specialists at Bugatti. The French brand shocked the world with the Veyron when it debuted in 2006, but at eight years old, the hypercar may be getting a little stale to its wealthy clientele. What's worse, Bugatti insiders say a replacement is still years away.
Bugatti planned an initial run of 300 Veyron coupes when it went on sale, but the introduction of the convertible added an extra 150 cars to the docket. Generally, its cars have been built to order, other than some of its show cars. In December, Bugatti confirmed that it had sold its 400th car. Now, there are still about 40 Veyron Grand Sports to find homes for, according to Bloomberg, which amounts to about 62.5 million euros ($85 million) in product.
To solve the problem, Bugatti has devised the Dynamic Drive Experience that has the Grand Sport touring the US. It allows potential buyers to drive the car on the road and experience its raw speed on closed airport runways. The company hopes being hands-on with the supercar is going to move a few more of them.

Bugatti's EB110-inspired Centodieci is one hot step closer to production

Bugatti's heritage-inspired Centodieci is related to the Chiron, but it's different enough to require its own set of validation tests. After taking on the Nurburgring, the limited-edition hypercar was put through its paces in the scorching heat of the American Southwest's deserts. "Testing in the hot, dry desert is a huge help for us in the development process," explained Stefan Schmidt, an engineer in Bugatti's overall vehicle development department. "Every model has to run flawlessly in all weather and in all traffic conditions," he added. With no less than 27 engineers in tow, the Bugatti team started the hot-weather test in California and meandered east for about 500 miles until it reached Arizona, where temperatures sometimes climb to over 120 degrees. The convoy included eight cars: a Centodieci prototype, three examples of the Chiron Pur Sport, and four examples of the Chiron Super Sport. Each one was fitted with approximately 200 sensors that record various parameters that get sent to the engineers traveling with the convoy and to the development team in Wolfsburg, Germany. Heat takes a toll on cars in normal driving conditions, but Bugatti went the extra mile to torture its prototypes. It subjected them to low-speed stop-and-go traffic, it reached nearly 200 mph (on a closed track, of course), and it left them sitting in the sun with the air conditioning on. The aim is to see how different components (ranging from the fuel delivery system to the materials used to build the cabin) hold up to extreme heat. The data gathered during the tests was compared to the numbers obtained through simulations to identify areas of concern. Taking the Centodieci to the American desert was important; it's notably fitted with an additional air intake near the oil cooler. "The Centodieci's newly-developed bodywork, airflow changes, and its engine bay cover manufactured from glass mean the temperature behavior is quite different, especially in such extreme heat conditions," said Andre Kullig, the manager of few-off projects at Bugatti. The firm notes that the Centodieci passed the hot-weather tests with flying colors. It has one final hurdle to clear before it enters production: nearly 20,000 miles of high-speed and endurance testing in Europe. When that's over and everything checks out, the project will be signed off and production of the 10 examples planned will begin in Molsheim, France. Deliveries should start in 2022, and the model is sold out.