Bugatti sitting on $85M stockpile of unsold Veyrons

Thu, 13 Feb 2014

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.

Don't get too excited for a Veyron successor just yet. Even after the convertible is sold out, "I wouldn't expect an announcement for a couple years down the road," said John Hill, Bugatti Sales Director for the Americas, to Bloomberg, although there still might be some hope because the company's president confirmed that a future model is under development. Maybe Bugatti can surprise us again.

By Chris Bruce