All posts in “Bugatti Centodieci”

$9.3 Million Bugatti Centodieci in Final Testing Phase Before Deliveries Begin

Bugatti has dedicated a team of 27 engineers to test the limited edition Centodieci in extreme weather conditions in the USA. The model will undergo cold-climate testing, high-speed and endurance testing and hot-climate testing which is the most important development element.

In the deserts of the USA, temperatures occasionally exceed 50°C which creates a hostile environment for both humans and machines. Nevertheless, Bugatti benefits from this weather in the development process of creating a model that performs perfectly in all weather and traffic conditions.

There are eight hyper sport cars on the road from Molsheim accompanying the Centodieci- three Chiron Pur Sports and four Chiron Super Sports all going through similar tests.

The Bugatti fleet has been to high altitudes of up to 2,800 meters and temperatures as high as 45 degrees Celsius. The models have been tested on low-speed stop-start traffic, they have been left in the blazing sun with the air condition on full and also driven at 320km/h in a closed road environment.

The engineers checked the key systems like electronics, telemetrics, fueling process, radio frequencies and air conditioning at every stage to ensure the vehicles are performing perfectly. All the cars including the Centodieci have been fitted with 200 sensors for delivering data to the development team at Wolfberg and to the engineers on site.

The Centodieci is powered by an 8.0 litre W16 engine delivering 1,600hp at 7,000 rpm. It has also been equipped with an additional air intake mounted near the oil cooler for regulating the engine temperature.

After completing the hot-weather tests, the Centodieci will be taken to its final high-speed drives and endurance test over a distance of 30,000 kilometres in Europe. The production of the Centodieci will be limited to 10 units only. Deliveries will begin next year.

The Bugatti Centodiece is almost ready for production

It took Bugatti Automobiles S.A.S. about two years to go from the unveiling of their Centodiece in 2019 to an actual production prototype, and now they are putting this EB110 homage through some horrendous testing to make sure each of the only 10 cars that have been sold to customers, are exactly what those fortunate clients are expecting, a hypercar that’s a perfect balance between speed, performance, and luxury … a super-high-speed GT so to speak, which is exactly what Ettore Bugatti envisioned his cars would be.

A Bugatti has been known for being fast ever since Ettore founded his company back in 1909 in Molsheim, France … and today this philosophy hasn’t changed, making a comfortable hypercar that can outrun just about anything it might encounter on the open road, and while you can do a lot on the computer these days in terms of virtual testing before actually building the car in real life, some things can only be found out by taking a fully functional test mule into the world.

The Bugatti Centodiece is being created by the one-off and few-off projects department at Molsheim, all 10 units have been sold a long time ago, with a base price of €8,000,000 (nearly US $10 million), and it hasn’t been too long ago we published an article on the first production prototype of the Bugatti Centodiece assembled, and once they completed this prototype she faced her inspiration, two of the rarest Bugatti EB110 in the world, a blue EB110S LM and a silver EB110S SC GTS-1, the only two official factory prepared race cars ever made based on the EB110 that inspired the Centodiece.

But that encounter was just to ‘run in’ the new 1,600 PS W16 8-Liter engine, once that was done the bright white prototype was taken into the wind tunnel for the first fine-tuning and ‘stress-test’, which allows the aerodynamics and cooling setup to be tested in a way that wouldn’t be possible on the open road, remember supercars were tested in the Sixties with small tuffs of wool taped to the body and taken onto the road with a follow vehicle to see how those tuffs react to the airflow … those days are gone now, in comes a 9,300 PS engine with an eight-meter propeller generating a wind force larger than a hurricane … in fact, it would allow an airplane to take off easily, so the aerodynamics of the Centodieci better be on point, or this multi-million dollar prototype goes flying into the air.

And it seems Bugatti is bringing the Centodiece to each possible event to draw attention, a rather strange decision as all 10 units were sold back in 2019 already, but that that didn’t stop them from showcasing this amazing automobile at the 2021 edition of the famous Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este event, where the white beauty was joined by a very special, Bugatti blue EB110 … this rare car was once owned by none other than Romano Artioli, the Italian businessman that made the Bugatti EB110 possible back in the Nineties when he obtained the right to use the Bugatti name on a car and built the famous ‘Blue Factory’ in Campogalliano in Italy to make supercars under the brand name Bugatti Automobili S.p.A.

Today we’re back at building hypercars as Bugatti Automobiles S.A.S., with Stephan Winkelmann as the CEO, and while the Bugatti Centodiece was mainly a static beauty on display on the banks of Lake Como, apart from a small parade, things changed considerably for this unique prototype shortly after leaving Italy to head over to Mount Lemon to the north of Tucson, Arizona in the United States of America for high-altitude and high-temperature testing … up to 45°C (113°F).

A convoy of Bugatti hypercars, led by the Centodiece prototype, thunder down State Route 1 while the extreme heat makes the road ahead appear to shimmer, a team of 27 engineers flew to the US to take several Bugatti through their paces in blisteringly hot conditions, the decision to take the cars into the US deserts was made as the temperature can go over 50°C to create an extremely hostile environment for hypercars like the Bugatti Centodiece.

“Testing in the hot, dry desert is a huge help for us in the development process. All Bugatti models have to function perfectly no matter how high the temperature, including the few-of Centodieci. Even if we are only creating ten cars, as with the Centodieci, the testing procedure is just as grueling. Every model has to run flawlessly in all weather and in all traffic conditions,” explains Stefan Schmidt, an engineer in Overall Vehicle
Development at Bugatti.

In total Bugatti took 8 cars to California, four units of their Chiron Super Sport, three units from the Chiron Pur Sport, and naturally the bright white Centodiece, which contrasts heavily with the otherwise matt black wrapped hypercars following her for 800 km (500 miles) between California and Arizona … some real-world testing on the Central Pacific Highway passing through San Diego during this road trip.

This test allowed the engineers to take these hypercars to altitudes up to 2,800 m where the air is a lot thinner than on sea level when they took the convoy up Mount Lemons in Tuscon, going over rough roads, hitting stop-and-go traffic, having the cars standing still in the hot sun with the AC on to keep cool. They even managed to shut down a stretch of road to allow high-speed runs at 320 km/h (198 mph), all in an effort to get as much real-world data as possible to make sure this car lives up to her expectations when they get delivered in 2022.

“During hot-climate testing, we focus specifically on the chassis, engine, transmission, thermal management, and electrics as well as on the vehicle as a whole,” reveals Pierre Rommelfanger, Head of Overall Vehicle Development at Bugatti. The team checks interior components and body parts for thermal expansion, look, and feel, leaving no detail unchecked, no matter how small.

After these ‘hot’ test sessions, the Bugatti Centodiece will return to Europe for final high-speed stints and endurance testing, which will add tens of thousands of km to the odometer before the car will be ‘signed-off’ by the development team … only when all the t’s have been crossed and the i’s have been dotted will the production of the 10 Bugatti Centodiece start at Molsheim.

Bugatti Centodieci at Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este

The Bugatti Centodieci was unveiled over two years ago, at the 2019 edition of Monterey Car Week in the United States, but none of the 10 units that are to be built at the Atelier in Molsheim has been delivered to her owners yet, and that’s while all of them were already sold before the car was even shown in August 2019.

The Bugatti Centodieci is a special anniversary model, a celebration of the 110th anniversary of Bugatti as a company and inspired by the famous EB110 from the Nineties, the Centodiece comes with the famous 8-Liter W16 engine that delivers 1,600 PS and the first customer car will be finished in 2022, but Bugatti already has a production prototype that has been used for testing, and it’s that white beauty they brought to the 2021 edition of the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este at Lake Como in Italy.

The Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este is a famous event in Europe, held for the first time in 1929 already, and Bugatti enjoyed a long and successful relationship with the event, back in 2019 the La Voiture Noire took first prize in the ‘Concept Cars & Prototypes’ category, but other important models such as the 1937 Type 57S four-seater sports tourer, the 1934 Type 59 Grand Prix car, and the 1938 Type 57SC Atlantic, have all taken away significant awards over the last years, so this year Bugatti displayed the Centodiece in the ‘Concept Cars & Prototypes’ area, where we also admired the 1971 Lamborghini Countach LP500 prototype recreation.

Villa d’Este is a five-star resort alongside the famous Lake Como boasting some of the most breath-taking architectural works of the sixteenth century, the place to be for the rich and famous for many years, and the annual Concorso d’Eleganza brings owners and enthusiasts from all over the world to this picturesque place to admire the best of the best when it comes to classic and modern cars.

We already mentioned the Bugatti Centodiece is a celebration of the 100th anniversary of Bugatti, but the inspiration for the design of this new hypercar is taken from another Bugatti that is actually celebration her 30th anniversary this year, the 1991 EB110, more specifically the EB110 Super Sport edition, and just for the Concorso d’Eleganza they had both cars available, the beautiful but aggressively styled Centodiece, and the traditional Bugatti Blue finished EB110 SS … but not just any of the 30 Super Sport models, this specific EB110 SS was once owned by Romano Artioli.

Romano Artioli was the Italian businessman that made the Bugatti EB110 possible back in the Nineties when he obtained the right to use the Bugatti name on a car and he built the famous ‘Blue Factory’ in Campogalliano in Italy to make supercars under the brand name Bugatti Automobili S.p.A.

Powered by a 3.5-Liter V12 engine with four turbochargers and five valves per cylinder, the Bugatti EB110 was ahead of its time in 1991, built on a carbon fiber chassis, this car came with angular styling and upward-opening doors, to create a luxurious driving experience, the engine came with an integrated transmission to safe space, but the EB110 still featured four-wheel drive … sadly the economic crisis in the early Nineties caused production of the EB110 to cease by 1995, only 30 of the EB110 SS models would be built, one recently changing hands for €2,242,500 or US$ 2,600,000 at the Bonhams The Zoute Sale auction.

Today the company is officially called Bugatti Automobiles S.A.S. and the headquarter is located in Molsheim, France, where the Atelier is creating the most impressive hypercars ever since, and the Bugatti Centodiece was presented as a static display within the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este ‘Concept Cars & Prototypes’ area on Saturday 2 October and again on Sunday 3 October, the car also participated in the dynamic presentation parade.

Please enjoy some more photos of these amazing cars at one of the most impressive events of the year:

The Bugatti EB 110, the super sports car of the 1990s

Let’s take a trip back to September 15, 1990, the Champs Élysées in Paris, a Bugatti EB110S drives down this famous road as a celebration of Ettore Bugatti’s 110th anniversary. With angular styling, Lamborghini style doors, and a massive amount of power … the super sportscar for the 90s was unveiled, the Bugatti EB110.

We are talking about a V12 powered supercar with a quad-turbo setup complete with intercoolers mounted on a lightweight carbon monocoque with about 550 hp being delivered to all four wheels through two differentials. If we compare that to the Lamborghini Diablo that was unveiled in January 1990, the Bull from Sant’Agata came with 492 hp and didn’t offer four-wheel drive until the 1993 Diablo VT version) … so it’s safe to say the Bugatti EB110 was very impressive at that time.

And that also reflected itself in the price, the 1990 Bugatti EB110GT was listed at 450,000,000 Lira (about $200,000 in 1990), but it did come with service and parts included for three years, the later released EB110 Super Sport had an MSRP of 550,000,000 Lira ($240,000 in 1992) compared to the Lamborghini Diablo VT MSRP in 1993 of $239,000 those numbers aren’t too crazy … but today’s values are even more impressive, only ten years ago, in 2011, a Bugatti EB110 would change hands for under $300,000, today we are talking about $3,000,000 for one that was recently sold by RM Sotheby’s.

The story of Bugatti was started in 1909 when Ettore Bugatti founded his company in Molsheim in the Alsace where he built the famous Bugatti Type 35, the Type 41 Royale, and the beautiful Type 57 Atlantic, sadly Ettore passed away in 1947, and even more unfortunate, his son Jean Bugatti was taken from him in 1939 already, so there was no successor to run the car building company and after about 8,000 Bugatti were built the Bugatti factory was bought by Hispano-Suiza in 1963 and the Bugatti cars went into the automotive history chronicles.

About 25 years later, in 1987, Romano Artioli was able to buy the rights to the Bugatti name and start building cars again, as he was Italian he opted to have Bugatti Automobili SpA located in Italy, in Campogalliano, Modena more precisely, and the design of his new factory made it unforgettable, even today, the at the time highly modern production facility was designed by a star architect and boasted state-of-the-art technology. The “Fabbrica Blu,” or blue building for the Development department sported the Bugatti emblem, and the large white ventilation ducts symbolized the heart of the factory.

But the economic collapse in the ’90s meant the number of customers for a super sports car like the Bugatti EB110 was dwindling fast, and a series of setbacks resulted in another demise in automotive history, Bugatti Automobili SpA ceased operations in September 1995, but five more EB110SS would be made by 1997 as German-based Dauer Racing obtained a license to build the EB110 and they even obtained the remaining stock from the factory grounds in Campogalliano, the factory itself was sold to a different company that went out of business before moving in, so this amazing production facility stood empty ever since.

In 1998 the Volkswagen Group came into the picture, obtaining the brand name and starting Bugatti Automobiles S.A.S. with a headquarter that returned to Molsheim, back where Ettore Bugatti started this journey 90 years earlier, and some of the world’s most impressive hypercars were built, from the Bugatti Veyron in 2005 to the Bugatti Chiron from 2016, but this year, 2021, they are also finalizing the Centodiece, as an homage to the EB110 from the Nineties, a car that celebrates her 30th anniversary now.

To celebrate the fact the Bugatti EB110 was unveiled 30 years ago, owners took a total of twelve classic Bugatti EB110 back to Campogalliano to visit the famous Blue Factory again to pay tribute to their birthplace, ranging from the EB110GT to the EB110 SS and even the two factory race-spec models, this impressive collection of Bugatti EB110 was joined by the production prototype of the Bugatti Centodiece.

“With the EB 110, Bugatti developed a completely innovative super sports car 30 years ago that was pioneering not only for the brand but also for the automotive industry,” says Stephan Winkelmann, President of Bugatti. “Already 30 years ago, the technology, innovations, design, and handling were years ahead of the competition. At the same time, the EB 110 established the DNA of modern Bugatti hyper sports cars with its combination of a carbon monocoque, all-wheel drive, and four turbochargers.”

In the end, a total of 95 units of the Bugatti EB 110s and just 39 Bugatti EB 110 Super Sport cars were built in Campogalliano between 1990 and 1995, so only 135 original Bugatti EB110 exist worldwide, one of them being the famous yellow EB110 SS owned by Michael Schumacher, making the Bugatti EB110 a collector’s item for sure, and their value will only rise over the years to come.

Bugatti took the Centodieci to the wind tunnel

The Bugatti Centodieci is a few-off from the famous Molsheim company, as a celebration of the classic EB 110 that was created about three decades ago when Romano Artioli revived the Bugatti name and built a factory in Campogalliano that would eventually build 96 units of the EB 110 GT and a mere 32 units of the EB 110 Super Sports … the last car left Campogalliano in 1995.

The super sports car of the Nineties was built around a carbon-fiber monocoque and had a mid-mounted V12 engine capable of 550 PS with the help of four turbochargers, the all-wheel-drive would deliver a top speed over 350 km/h, unseen at that time, but figures that are dwarfed by the new Centodieci with her 8.0-liter W16 engine boasting 1,600 PS that is capable of speeds over 350 km/h … only ten will be built, with a starting price of €8,000,000, and no, you can’t order one … they were sold out in a matter of hours.

So selling the 10 Bugatti Centodiece for a total of more than €80,000,000 didn’t pose a problem, now it’s time to live up to the expectations and create a car worthy of that price tag, the Centodieci has obtained a legend status even before the first client car is delivered, and development of such a high-end hypercar means taking her into a state-of-the-art wind tunnel … which is exactly what Bugatti did recently.

This allows the aerodynamics and cooling setup to be tested in a way that wouldn’t be possible on the open road, remember supercars were tested in the Sixties with small tuffs of wool taped to the body and taken onto the road with a follow vehicle to see how those tuffs react to the airflow … those days are gone now, in comes a 9,300 PS engine with an eight-meter propeller generating a wind force larger than a hurricane … in fact, it would allow an airplane to take off easily, so the aerodynamics of the Centodieci better be on point, or this multi-million dollar prototype goes flying into the air.

But it’s not only the wind that blows onto the new Bugatti, on the floor of this wind tunnel are five bands, one under each wheel and a fifth one underneath the body itself, but this also allows the wheels to be spun and the airflow underneath the car to be simulated to speeds up to 300 km/h to get a full impression of how the Centodieci should be tuned according to André Kullig, Technical Project Manager for one and few-off projects at Bugatti.

It doesn’t matter if Bugatti will build one unit like the La Voiture Noire, or ten as is the case with this Centodieci, they all are thoroughly trialed and tested before being given the ok, every single unit built has to meet or exceed the quality and safety standards applicable to mass production, in case of the Centodieci, the small but flat front design with the typical horseshoe shape, influences the airflow considerably when compared to models like the Chiron or Divo, especially at speeds above 350 km/h.

Bugatti development engineers first start with computer simulations to achieve initial targets that have been pre-calculated in development, once those computer simulations are finished the development prototype is taken into the wind tunnel, as is the case with the Centodieci now, once wind tunnel testing is completed, it’s finally time to take the new hypercar into the wild for actual high-speed testing on a test track … which is where the fun begins for the test drivers.

But back to the wind tunnel, the Centodieci gets her initial test to see what can be improved, and then they start working on changing the angle of the front diffuser flaps and that massive rear wing, modifying the angle minutely to see what the best position is, keep in mind the Centodieci will come with a fixed rear wing, so it has to be perfect at every speed. “Even once we have identified the ideal settings, we continue to try others in order to see how the Centodieci responds,” says André Kullig.

After that the Bugatti development engineers start looking at downforce for each wheel individually, it has to be set up as close to neutral as possible so the Centodieci is handling correctly at the tremendous speeds this hypercar is capable of thanks to her 1,600 PS. “No matter what speed and what driving situation, the Centodieci is sportily neutral and can be managed at all times in spite of its immense power,” according to  André Kullig.

And while we are still talking about a development prototype, not even a pre-production prototype in this case, just take a look at the amazing blue leather interior, it is perfect and reminiscent of the one inside the customer cars, Bugatti doesn’t cut corners, not even on a prototype that will likely be seeing thousands of kilometers during testing, and probably in the harshest conditions … but the car looks good, and will still be amazing after she is put aside and production begins, and let’s not forget, each one of the 10 production cars is sold at €8,000,000 net, this development prototype is valued at a multitude of that number.

Bugatti even published a short YouTube video of the wind tunnel testing of the Centodieci … enjoy it below:

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The Bugatti Centodieci faces the Bugatti EB 110

Remember our article on the two unique Bugatti EB110 cars we published a while ago? Where we talked about probably the two rarest EB110 models in modern automotive history, a blue EB110S LM and a silver EB110S SC GTS-1 … two bespoke race cars built by Bugatti and based on the EB110 SS, only one of each were ever made, making each one unique on her own because they were built with a different purpose in mind. The blue car was specifically built for Le Mans, hence the EB110 LM naming, and she did enter the 1994 edition of the 24h of Le Mans, with a rumored power output of more than 700 PS.

Earlier this year the silver EB110S SC GTS-1 returned to a race track in Dyon after being dormant for 25 years, but not to compete, but to be part of a photoshoot, after that the car would join its blue EB110S LM in the UK, to be taken care of by the specialists at H.R.Owen Bugatti for their annual maintenance, and it seems they haven’t been returned to their owner’s garage just yet … Bugatti Automobiles had the great idea to take their new limited edition model, the Centodiece, which is an homage to the EB110SS, to the Nardò track in Italy and come face to face with these two bespoke built race cars from the past … a meeting of two icons.

The Bugatti Centodiece will be entering production in 2022, but before that happens the prototypes will be taken for multiple test drives, both on the open road, and on the track, and that’s why Bugatti returned to the famous Nardò circuit in southern Italy, a proving ground often used by not only Bugatti but many renowned supercar and hypercar manufacturers, this test track in Apulia has seen many prototypes roar their engines for final dynamic checks before going into production.

The 6.2-kilometer track at Nardò combines several right-left-right corners to be taken at high speeds that allow a perfect refinement of the chassis, this track is very demanding on both driver and car, that’s why it’s a preferred venue, but Lars Fischer, Head of Chassis Testing and Application at Bugatti, takes the testing even further by not only keeping the new Centodiece on the track, but also taking it onto the rounds around Apulia, to get a better understanding of the chassis tuning in real-world traffic, and on roads that aren’t as smooth as a race track.

A team of 20 engineers and drivers took the Bugatti Centodiece to Italy to finalize the new model, experts in chassis tuning and development together with engine, transmission, and bodywork specialists all work together during these grueling tests under the Italian sun, this allows them to verify the car’s performance under high outside temperature while taking her onto the high-speed course at Nardò.

The Bugatti Centodieci will be made by hand right at the atelier in Molsheim, this model is an homage to the legendary EB 110 and it’s also a symbol of Bugatti’s coachbuilding expertise, back in 1998, the EB 110 was a milestone on the road to reviving the Bugatti brand in Molsheim, and now they face each other on the Italian race track, but in nearly 30 years a lot has changed, the EB110 came with 610 PS while today the Centodiece will add almost 1,000 PS to that figure, while the EB110 didn’t have a lot of electronics fitted, the Centodiece has systems that alter the chassis dynamics in real-time.

But for Loris Bicocchi, who was already a test driver in the early 90s, and was effectively involved in the development of the EB 110 from scratch, the biggest difference isn’t the power output or the electronics … it’s the tires, the grip level of modern tires like those on the Centodieci is extremely high, he says, and this allows for high lateral acceleration, now Bicocchi is helping the Bugatti team to develop the Centodiece, especially the chassis setup … so he came full circle, working on the EB110 and now on that cars homage 30 years later.

But only a very select few will be able to enjoy all this hard work, Bugatti will only build 10 units of the Centodiece, deliveries will start in 2022, and they are all sold already … at €8,000,000 each, that’s about US$ 9,500,000 …

The $24 Million Bugatti Lineup: Just 4 Cars Only

All hyper sports cars manufactured by Bugatti are required to undergo extensive tests in order to meet exceptional quality standards. The Bugatti development team set out for the demanding Nurburgring circuit with not less than four models and six engineers. They took over the Nurburgring with the Bugatti Centodieci, Chiron Pur Sport, Divo and the Chiron Super Sport 300+.

The lineup featured the most exclusive vehicle fleet in the world with a net value of just under 20 million euros. The Centodieci is priced at 8m euros, the Divo at 5 million euros, the Chiron Pur Sport at 3 million euros and the Chiron Super Sport 300+ at 3.5m euros.

The Nurburgring circuit is considered to be the world’s most ideal testing circuit with an unusual topography, the circuit consists of 33 left bends, 40 right bends, 17% gradient and an altitude difference of 300 metres. The total distance of the test circuit is 20.832km.

When the vehicles are competing on the circuit, the engineers will note down the overall performance of each vehicle to ensure it delivers perfect differentiation within the performance range of the Bugatti Chiron. After the test drives, the results are further analyzed and transmitted to the development team for further execution.

Bugatti Desktop Wallpaper

In the case of the Chiron Super Sport 300+, the developers and engineers check and verify the chassis series setup as finalized before, the hyper sports car was primarily built for top speeds of upto 440km/h. In addition, the developers take the handling and characteristics of the Divo and Chiron Pur Sport models as benchmarks for the new Chiron Super Sport 300+ and the Centodieci.

The first production prototype of the Bugatti Centodiece is currently being assembled

At “The Quail – A Motorsports Gathering” in California back in 2019, Bugatti unveiled an extremely special project … the Centodiece as an homage to the legendary Bugatti EB110 from the Nineties, created by Romano Artioli and Giampaolo Benedini, the EB110 was responsible for the revival of Bugatti as a hypercar manufacturer.

30 years later the Centodiece wants to evoke that same sentiment again, but in a brand-new, contemporary design … the angular styling of the EB110 just wouldn’t work today, but Bugatti only wants to build 10 units of the Centodiece and with a price tag of €8,000,000 (which is $9,700,00 at today’s exchange rate), this very exclusive car is destined for a select few customers, still, they sold all ten units in a matter of hours.

The Bugatti Centodiece is being created by the one-off and few-off projects department at Molsheim, but it has to meet very stringent requirements just like the normal (of you can call any Bugatti ‘normal’) production cars, probably the Centodiece customers even expect their car to exceed every single Bugatti known today, so the pressure is on at Bugatti to build the best EB110 tribute possible.

The time has come at Molsheim to build the first production prototype for the new Bugatti Centodiece, Andre Kullig, who was involved in cars like the Divo and La Voiture Noire, was looking forward to finally build the first Centodiece after more than a year of calculations, simulating, designing, and testing the new design.

Recently the development team at Bugatti was able to put the first rolling chassis to work in their in-house dynamometer to make sure the drivetrain is up to specs, after all, we are talking about a W16 engine that will deliver 1,600 hp in the end … the next step is to build the actual bodywork now …

The challenges are enormous: taking an 8-liter engine capable of 1,600 hp gets extremely hot, and as an homage to the EB110, the engine cover is made of glass so you can admire this powerplant, so they need a large air vent and optimized airflow to make sure the engine gets enough cooling. Inspiration from the EB110 Super Sport was taken for the five, oval air intake behind the side window, but also for the fixed rear wing.

The first customer deliveries for the Bugatti Centodiece will only happen by 2022, first, they have to complete this production prototype, and then take it to the track for many miles to perfectly finetune the engine, suspension, cooling, and chassis setup … only after every single parameter is perfected will the first owner be able to take delivery of his ‘one of ten’ Bugatti Centodiece.