20 Years Later, The Bugatti Veyron Is Cooler Than Ever
Twenty years ago this month, Bugatti Veyron began production. That’s hard to believe in the same way that so many passages of time are hard to believe—"wow, I’m getting old," etc.—but also because the Veyron is still astonishing two decades later.
One thousand one metric horsepower, 253 miles per hour, an 8.0-liter, quad-turbo W-16, all in a package no harder to live with than a Golf. Even in an age where 1,000-plus-hp outputs aren’t the exclusive preserve of hypercars, the Veyron stands out. Only a handful of cars have ever exceeded it in terms of numbers, and arguably none has had such an impact. And today, the Veyron is cooler than ever.
In its original, pre-War era, Bugatti was one of the greatest of automakers, producers of both highly successful sports racing cars and lavish gran turismos. In 1987, the company rose from the dead under the ownership of Romano Artioli, who set up a new company in Italy that created the EB110 of 1991. An extremely cool car, the EB110 was nonetheless a failure, and Artioli sold Bugatti to the Volkswagen Group.
This was the era of Ferdinand Piech. The grandson of Ferdinand Porsche, Piech was just about the most ambitious automotive engineer of all time. At Porsche, he created the 917; at Mercedes, the five-cylinder diesel; at Audi, the five-cylinder gas engine and Quattro all-wheel drive. In 1993, he became the chairman of the VW Group and spurred on tons of crazy projects.
There were competing efforts from Audi and VW to make a car capable of 3 liters/100 kilometers fuel economy, the A2 3L and Lupo 3L, respectively. He spearheaded the purchase of Bentley, Lamborghini, Skoda, and SEAT, transforming each. But with Bugatti, he sought to make the ultimate car.
Bugatti has put out a number of stories this year to celebrate the Veyron’s 20th, and one outlines the supercar’s origins. In 1997, Piech took a Shinkansen train in Japan with VW’s engine head, Karl-Heinz Neumann, where he pitched the idea of a car with 18 cylinders arranged in a “W,” capable of 1,000 PS (986 hp) and 400 kilometers per hour (248.548 mph). VW bought Bugatti in 1998, and soon after, unveiled several concepts showing where the brand could go.
The first two concepts were front-engine W-18s from Italdesign, the EB118 coupe and EB218 four-door. In 1999, Bugatti unveiled another Italdesign car, the EB18/3 Chiron, the true predecessor to what became the Veyron. Then, it unveiled the EB18/4 Veyron, a concept it designed in-house.
Piech announced to media at the 2000 Geneva Motor Show his intent to make a Bugatti with 1,001 PS (987 hp) and a top speed of 400 km/h. Even by his own standards, this was something akin to madness. Sure, there were Le Mans race cars that had gone that fast, and just a couple of years earlier, the McLaren F1 did 240.1 mph (at VW’s own Ehra-Lessien test track, no less), but Piech wanted a car that one could take to the opera in total comfort.
"Knowing Herr Piech pretty well, the Veyron is a typical Piech car because he is totally dedicated to engineering challenges, and I think he needed the singular challenge to build the best car in the world," said Dr. Franz-Josef Paefgn, former president of Bugatti, in the book Bugatti Veyron, A Quest for Perfection. "In his head, I can see exactly where it came from."
Dr. Paefgn said that the sentiment among VW engineers when Piech announced the project was that he’d gone off the deep end. It was "crazy" even by the standards of the VW Group at the time.
But, Piech had a track record of making the seemingly impossible a reality. Long-time auto executive Bob Lutz famously recalled a dinner he had with Piech in the 1990s. Lutz, then at Chrysler, asked Piech how he managed to get such tight, even panel gaps on the then-new Mk4 Golf. Piech essentially told him he gathered all the body engineers in his office and told them they’d be fired in six weeks if they didn’t make it happen. They made it happen.
Even still, the Veyron’s gestation was painful as the team faced challenge after challenge. A naturally aspirated W-18 became a quad-turbocharged W-16. In Bugatti Veyron, A Quest for Perfection, the Veyron’s chief engineer, Dr. Wolfgang Schrieber, recalls some of the problems in early high-speed tests.
Above 223 mph, the seals for the driveshafts expanded so much that they came into contact with other parts of the car and shredded. The rear CV boots also moved so quickly that they flung all their oil out and failed. All of this on a car that had to meet all the same standards as any other VW product.
I don’t need to go into detail, as many of the Veyron’s stories are well told. So, suffice to say that when the car did reach production 20 years ago, meeting Piech’s enormous expectations, it must have been a huge relief.
But the Veyron was (and perhaps is) not universally beloved. It doesn’t really fit the mould of the classic supercar, with its turbochargers, dual-clutch gearbox, all-wheel drive, and 4,000-plus pound curb weight.
"We were all a bit sniffy about this car when it was unveiled," recalled Chris Harris in a recent video, "'Oh, it’s going to lack personality.' It’s got a personality all of its own."
It couldn’t be more different than, say, a McLaren F1, but that’s what makes it compelling. The F1’s designer, Gordon Murray, actually tested and analyzed the car for Road & Track back in 2006, and his insight is relevant and fascinating:
'In summing up the Bugatti Veyron, had I not driven it, I would have great difficulty in deciding just what it stands for and where it fits in. To be absolutely fair, the Veyron team did not set out to challenge the McLaren F1, Enzo or Porsche Carrera GT as the ultimate driving machine.
This it certainly doesn't do at two tons with turbo lag. It also falls short of the Ferrari 612 Scaglietti and the Mercedes SLR McLaren for high-performance touring because of the outward vision problems and lack of luggage space. Where it absolutely succeeds is as a massive technical achievement—a statement for VW AG. And it will be guaranteed a place in automotive history because of the performance figures.'
Murray also said he "always felt a little responsible for starting this lunatic chase for top speed with the McLaren F1 (even though top speed was never one of our targets!), and the Bugatti Veyron should put an end to this nonsense and let the designers get on with the job of designing good fun, efficient sports cars."
In reality, the Veyron only stoked the flames.
Some supercars are immediately beloved, like the Lamborghini Countach or the McLaren F1; some are only appreciated years later, like the Jaguar XJ220 or the Lexus LFA. I think the Veyron fits into the latter category.
It’s taken time for enthusiasts to really digest the Veyron. Plus, the younger among us, who came into the car world without any preconceived notions, are now coming of age and feeling nostalgia for Piech’s Bugatti.
Like the LFA’s, the Veyron’s is a great story. Piech’s legend has only grown since his 2019 death, and enthusiasts feel fondness for his great cars, those previously mentioned, and those like the Volkswagen Phaeton, Bentley Continental GT, and Lamborghini Murcielago. Some of these were total business failures, the Phaeton probably the most famous, but the Veyron was also a wildly unprofitable endeavor for VW. It sold 450 examples of the car, and reportedly lost about $6.25 million on each.
Sure, it helped establish the Bugatti brand once again, but ultimately, this was a vanity project. Which is exactly what makes it cool. There’s a saying in the car business: “We’re not in business to make cars, we’re in business to make money.” How unromantic. It’s much cooler when a car exists for its own sake, making shareholders sweat.
As enthusiasts, we understand that cars are more than just mechanical objects. They’re reflections of people, those who create them, those who drive them, those who idolize them. The Veyron is the result of the work of brilliant engineers and a madman in Ferdinand Piech.
We’re in an era where many are lashing out against cars that prioritize numbers over engagement, against ballooning curb weights, against… a trail that the Veyron blazed. But the story, the ambition, the impact it had. As much as the way a car drives—and I’ve heard the Veyron’s driving experience described in glowing terms and also as being like that of a really fast Golf—these other elements matter.
It just took us 20 years to figure it out.
