Bugatti's New Business Strategy: Become Even More Elitist
Bugatti, one of the most extreme high-end super-luxe automakers on Earth, is introducing a new car this week called Solitaire. It's fittingly named, as it will be the first of the brand's new 'ultra-exclusive program of one-of-one cars.' So forget assembly lines, we're going back to coachbuilding for kings and princes.
There's no indication that Bugatti's existing lineup, which is also basically hand built, is being dissolved, but it looks like the French brand is going to start leaning a little harder into one-offs based on its announcement today.
This is not a random pivot. Bugatti's been doing one-off treatments on its cars since its early days, and in fact, some of its most spectacular creations were the result of trying to outclass coachbuilders when the cottage industry for one-of-a-kind cars was thriving. The Type 57 SC Atlantic is an example of such a machine, dreamed up by Jean Bugatti to be art-on-wheels, as it's still rightfully considered to this day.
As a middle-class road user myself, I find Bugatti's proclamation of creating not a car but a 'celebration of grace and elegance' a little eye-roll inducing. But as a lover of fine art and fanciful engineering, well, I can't deny that I'm excited to see what Bugatti's people will come up with. So far, this is the only teaser image of the Solitaire we've seen. Bugatti
Without the limitations of mass production, there's a whole lot of room for designers and tuners to go hog wild.
A return to coachbuilding (the classy way to describe one-off custom cars) makes sense for this moment in history, too, as we seem to be hurtling back towards guilded-age economics with a small group of people amassing so much money that a regular base-model Bugatti just isn't going to cut it. Or, looking at it another way, there might soon be more of a market for a single $5,000,000 car than 10 $500,000 ones.
We'll see what exactly Bugatti's cooking up, and get more details on the Solitaire, this Thursday, August 7.
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Its shape is a question of taste, but it's clearly not an automotive beauty in the conventional sense, like a Lamborghini Muira or an early E-Type Jag. It's more akin to Gordon Buehring's Cord 810 or a Hans Ledwinka Tatra (and even many original Bugattis) in being a hyper-complicated piece of sculpture that takes time to consider. Were the Type 57 Electron Coupe or the Atlante "pretty" cars? No. But decades later, they still captivate. The engine itself is a central feature of the exterior design, its top scandalously exposed between two aluminum intake snorkels. The practical reason for this is to dissipate the 8.0-liter engine's crackling heat (a good rain probably helps), making the broad band of bodywork that wraps around it useful for keeping curious young fingers from getting singed. Although capped by twin intercoolers and impressive parallel induction pipes, it's still a bit of a visual letdown if you've ever seen the nuanced artistry of most any original Bugattis. The two banks are essentially twin, narrow-angle Volkswagen VR8 blocks fed by a quartet of turbochargers and direct injection to produce 1001 horsepower (now rumored closer to 1100) at 6000 rpm and 922 pound-feet of torque between 2200 and 5500 rpm. This unimaginable wrenching is delivered forward through a fabulous paddle-shift seven-speed DSG gearbox (0.15 second per shift), then split between the front and rear axles by a Haldex clutch. The basic architecture is reminiscent of a Lamborghini Diablo's. Rotate the key, wait for the systems to self-check, and give the starter button a hard press. A short whirr is eclipsed by a thundering rumble. A check of the gauges finds all the normal ones--except for that power dial on the lower left with numbers ending at a startling 1001. Inside, the motif is Flash Gordon as Howard Hughes would've built it. It's coated in perfectly stitched leather and Alcantara, interrupted by only polished or engine-turned aluminum surfaces. The shapes have a thirties feel--kitschy maybe, but fun. Ahead of you, 1320 feet is about to be eviscerated. Hold the brake, select drive and then first gear. Press the launch-control button, nail the throttle (the pedals are offset to the right), and wait for the revs to stabilize at 3000. Then release--you're doing 60 mph in approximately this much time: 2.7 seconds. There's no wheelspin. The car simply disappears as a V-8-like bellow frantically tries to keep up. At 30 mph, the 4530-pound Veyron is pulling 0.99 g. The quarter mile passes in 10.4 seconds at 139.9 mph, but at 137, our ride height sensors notice the hydraulic suspension adjustment already lowering the chassis and pitching the nose slightly as the rear wing rises and angles itself. The sensation is completely unfamiliar, as the thrust against your back doesn't seem to fade with speed, flummoxing any sensible guess at what the peak velocity might be. 200 mph? 300 mph? Who knows? This thing might never stop. Burt Rutan's spaceship-ride business ought to be concerned about the competition. Were we at Volkswagen's giant Erha Leissen test track, a high-speed key inserted along the doorsill would've allowed the Veyron to run up to its 253-mph low-drag maximum by collapsing the rear wing, closing the front diffusers, and dropping the chassis another 0.8 inch. But Ehra Leissen is probably the only place where this will ever occur, as even a touch of the brake pedal or a 90-degree turn of the steering wheel forfeits the effort and sends you back to handling mode, which is electronically limited to "only" 233. Above 120 mph, any significant brake application causes the elevated rear wing to flip up to a barn-door 55 degrees, but our standard tests from 100 and 60 mph found the drilled and vented carbon-ceramic brakes to be ample-enough anchors: 60 to 0 mph in 103 feet from a 2.3-ton car is hauling it down big-time (decelerating at over 1.1 g--even without the air brake). It's only the car's handling that leaves room for any debate at all. While it pulls a supercar-stout 0.96 g in cornering (aided by the biggest tires ever made for a production car), the steering action is lighter than you'd think and rather hydraulic (Audilike, an editor comments). If you expect the Veyron's helm to be Lotus Elise-sensitive, you'll be disappointed by its vanilla road feel. Nevertheless, the response is lighting-strike quick and, around our figure-eight course, the Bugatti is pleasantly neutral. It's a car of two personalities: a straight-line rocketship and a liquidy GT when the line bends. As the two Veyrons are raised into the transporter, their extra tires rolled away and the tool chests snapped shut, we're left with some shattered test records and a final question: Is this truly the reincarnation of Bugatti? Molsheim's cars have had a few back-from-extinction adventures already: the six disappointing Type 101s (essentially Type 57s) assembled in the 1950s, Virgil Exner's horrifying rebody of the seventh T101 in 1965, and the 31 strangely Veyronlike, Italian-built EB110s spearheaded by Romano Artioli in 1991. (Indeed, the AWD GT version of Artioli's quad-turbocharged V-12 car is rumored to have been closely "examined" by the new regime.) Perhaps in 1956 when Roland Bugatti (Ettore's son) threw up his hands and let the implausible world of Molsheim finally yellow into old photographs, the automotive world should've simply accepted that its king was truly dead. On the other hand, it isn't as bizarre as you might think that blue-collar Volkswagen would be the ultimate sorcerer to conjure back Europe's prince of sports cars. There's a rare photograph of Ettore Bugatti and Ferdinand Porsche speaking to each other at a race. It was likely an awkward encounter, because at about that time, Porsche's Auto Unions were ruthlessly drubbing the Bugatti on the track. It was effectively the beginning of the end, really, for Molsheim. Yet 70 years later, it would be Porsche's grandson, Volkswagen's Dr. Piech, who'd purchase the Bugatti name as well as the historic portion of the old factory's property. And furthermore build there--near the reconstructed barn (that held Rembrandt Bugatti's sculptures), the Orangery (which displayed cars), and even the iconic chateau--a spectacular new assembly shop for the birth of the superb Veyron. A car a certain barista on La Cienega can tell you a great deal about.
