The Car
The Bugatti Veyron is a car of superlatives. It’s the world’s fastest roadworthy production car and the world’s most expensive. It has the fastest acceleration of any production car and you have to be seriously rich to own one and afford to keep it.
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| Bugatti Veyron |
Seen in three variants to date; the Veyron, the Veyron Grand Sport and the Veyron Super Sport, it will soon be joined by the SuperVeyron. Enthusiasts track the car down as one would a rare creature, hoping to photograph it, get close to it or even touch it, never daring to dream about ever driving it. The last two incarnations could be custom liveried and their distinctive designs make them easily identifiable with their owners.
Just over a hundred years ago Ettore Bugatti began producing what were deemed to be some of the most beautiful cars ever made. They were beautiful because their designer was an artist who made cars rather than a car manufacturer that loved art.
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| Ettore Bugatti |
For nearly forty years, the marque reigned supreme over the world of sports cars, successful in many races because the cars balanced weight with power producing great speed and manoeuvrability. The name became synonymous with elegance, speed and success until on the 11
th August 1939, disaster struck the Bugatti family when the only son, Jean Bugatti was killed whilst testing a Type 57 Tank racer which had recently won the Le Mans 24 Hour race. With his death died the hope of a future for the company when Jean’s father and founder of the company eventually died. This event was not to happen for another eight years but the toll of the Second World War which destroyed the original factory and post war economic troubles, combined with the death of Ettore led to a slow decline in the company’s fortunes before it ceased to exist in 1952.
Sporadic attempts to revive the Bugatti name failed due to poor design and a weak financial plan and the name Bugatti lived on only in aircraft parts for the next four decades.
In the 1980s, another revival was attempted but by the time the design of the new model, the EB110 was ready for production, economic recession had hit and the company folded once more.
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| Bugatti EB110 |
This time it was not to be long before the phoenix rose from the ashes and Volkswagen bought the Bugatti name and began designing concept cars that made their debut at motor shows in 1998 and 1999. Six years later, the hype and the technology were finally melded together to form the granddaddy of the supercar we know today, The Bugatti Veyron Super Sport.
| Name |
The Bugatti Veyron Super Sport |
| Price |
US$2.7m or £1.665m or nearly €2m |
| Brake Horse Power |
1184bhp |
Fuel Consumption at top speed
(and around town!) |
3.6mpg
9.6mpg |
| Top Speed |
Nearly 268mph |
| Acceleration |
0 – 62 mph in 2.46s, 0 – 186mph in 14.6s |
| Engine |
8 litre, 16 cylinder with four turbochargers |
| Weight |
4162lbs |
You need to be very rich to own a Bugatti but also very rich to run one too. When changing the tyres you’ll find it costs $25,000 for the tyres but $70,000 to fit them and the job can only be done in France, that’s when you know you’re going to need plenty of pocket money just to keep one going.
Whilst the list is slowly changing and evolving with economic circumstances, sometimes divorce cases and at other times, just the lure of a new model or sometimes even a new marque, this is a list of some of the many lucky people to have owned or who still own a Veyron:
| Who? |
Where? |
How? |
Who? |
Where? |
How? |
Richard Berry |
Evergreen, Colorado |
Grandparents were the founders of Yellow pages
|
 Nigo |
Tokyo |
Fashion Designer |
Ferdinand Piech |
Wolfsburg |
Chairman of the supervisory board of VW
|
Scott Storch |
Las Vegas |
Music Producer |
Ursula Piech |
Wolfsburg |
Ferdinand’s wife!
|
Simon Cowell |
London |
Music Executive |
Tim Cahill |
Manchester |
Premiership footballer
|
Eamonn O’Rourke |
Spain |
Kitchen Manufacturer |
Ralph Lauren |
New York |
Fashion Designer
|
Tom Brady |
Boston |
NFL Quarterback |
Tom Cruise |
New York |
Actor
|
 Thomas Bscher |
Moscow |
Chairman of Bugatti |
Afzal Khan |
Nyon |
Director of Project Khan, car tuning company
|
 Alain Prost |
Molsheim |
Former F1 Driver |
Samuel Eto’o |
Moscow |
Footballer |
Roustam Tariko |
Moscow |
Businessman |
As you’d imagine, a supercar like the Veyron would be a movie star as well as a star in its own right and you’d be correct. Unfortunately, whilst you’d expect something classy like a James Bond film, the car has turned out to be very much a B, or even C list actor gaining only a brief background role in the biggest movie it’s seen in: Mission Impossible III – Ghost Protocol in 2011.
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| Bugatti Veyron in Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol |
The Veyron appeared in Gumball 3000: Coast to Coast in 2009 alongside many other famous marques including Bentleys, Ferraris and Lamborghinis. Unfortunately for the Veyron, the star of the movie turned out to be its arch-nemesis the Koenigsegg, which stole the show.
And it made a background guest appearance in…
Crash and Burn, filmed in 2008 and considered a terrible car stealing movie trying to jump on the ‘Gone in 60 Seconds’ idea with a host of unheard of stars. Made for TV, it was poorly acted with limited excitement, even with the Veyron on board.
The Green Hornet, which appeared in 2011 was a half decent superhero movie where the hero, a successful businessman owns a Veyron. It’s seen several times in the movie but doesn’t get the same coverage or degree of cool as the Batmobile in the Batman movies.
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| Bugatti Veyron in Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol |
National Lampoon’s The Great American Run in 2007 was so bad it barely makes it into lists of films. A spoof of the Gumball Rally films which already spoof themselves, it features a Veyron driven by one of the characters but it gets lost in the maelstrom of poor acting and action.
National Geographic – the design and build of the Bugatti Veyron
How the engine works…
Racing a Veyron against a Eurofighter jet
Driving a Veyron into a lake
…and the sequel…
Watch where you’re going!
Bugatti have already announced that the SuperVeyron will be unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September 2013. The main improvements over previous models will be that it’ll lose 550lbs of weight through replacing metal components with much lighter carbon fibre parts. A more powerful 9.6l engine will be used, increasing bhp to 1600 and reducing the 0 – 60 mph figure to 1.8 seconds. The top speed will increase to 288mph taking it past the current record holder for the top speed in a production car currently held by the Koenigsegg Agera at 272 mph.
Using much of the technology and a little of the styling of the Veyron, Bugatti have produced a concept car called the 16C Galibier which, when produced, will be a four seater luxury sedan with the Veyron engine but with only two superchargers instead of four.
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| Bugatti 16C Galibier |
Criticisms of the car stem from whether the car has been built to Ettore Bugatti’s original ideals where Bugattis were works of art that were also cars or whether it’s simply a machine to break records. Opinion is divided on the car, with the worst critics being its competitors who universally say the designers and engineers have lost sight of what a sports car is. This is borne out by the high price tag that sets its exclusivity more than the limited production run or the car’s specification.
Top Gear love the car and the presenters can’t wait to get in a Veyron and drive it. The way it’s built, completely differently from any other motor car sets it apart from mere cars. The number of wealthy owners that have collected several of the cars can’t be wrong either.
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| Top Gear Bugatti Veyron Vs Eurofighter |
Bugatti began a new class of sports car or supercar in developing the Veyron. There are probably no other cars in its class for luxury, exclusivity and possibly beauty, although, as always, that is in the eye of the beholder.
There is a car that can compete with it in terms of performance and that’s the Koenigsegg Agera from Sweden but it’s not a pretty car and comes across as the ‘young pretender’ rather than the statesman of cool. Despite currently being faster than a Veyron, the Koenigsegg is to be eclipsed by the SuperVeyron when it becomes available but the Swedes are reportedly working on modifications to the Koenigsegg which will reclaim the crown but adding further weight to the argument that both the Veyron and its Swedish competitor are simply designed to break speed and acceleration records rather than be cars in the true sense of the word.
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| Koenigsegg Agera 2013 R |