Bugatti has a history; heritage, and mystique unlike that of any other marque, wrapped up in a glorious racing past, and a genius, eccentric founder.

The impossibly elegant and delicate Bugatti Type 35B easily competes for the title of the most beautiful car ever to take to a race track.


Ettore Bugatti turned down King Zog of Albania as a prospective buyer after having dinner with him, declaring, "a man who eats as you do will never drive one of my cars."

Upon calling Mr. Bugatti to complain that his car would not start in the morning, a customer was amazed to be told that Bugatti employees would be coming over to pay him for his trouble and take the car back. The company's founder did not appreciate that his masterpiece was not regularly housed in a garage.

With business practices like that, in a failing postwar market for luxury automobiles, it is not hard to see why Ettore Bugatti's company struggles to stay alive.


Bugatti is working on a sedan with eight tailpipes, tentatively named Bordeaux. Dr. Franz-Josef Pfaegen, who heads Bugatti, has indicated that few, if any, parts will be shared with the Bentley Mulsanne.


Approximately a half-century later, the brilliant if megalomaniacal VW CEO Ferdinand Piech sets the third coming of Bugatti on a similar track. The Veyron, he decides, will be nothing short of the fastest, most over-the-top car in the world, and no expense will be spared in making it so.

As the press have a field day with the numerous delays that plague the Veyron's introduction, Volkswagen realizes that the Bugatti mantle is not easily adopted. The brand is, after all, a reference to a company founded and operated by a wonderfully eccentric man with singular focus.

As press cars arrive, the Veyron gets something of a reprieve. Even Gordon Murray is willing to admit that it is a technological tour de force. Autocar Editor-at-Large Steve Sutcliffe goes so far as to admit that, in 2007, he has formed "a far higher opinion of it than the one I formed in 2005... I realized how wrong I'd been when I accused it of not being exciting enough.

"Having driven it back to back with some of the world's most exciting cars, I'm now certain the Veyron is the supreme creation in every sense. It's shatteringly rapid but also amazingly nimble, so much so that on any road, and in any conditions, it can drop a 911 GT3 RS in a heartbeat" ('Beguiled by a Bugatti, second time round,' Autocar, May 30^th, 2007).