2012 Bugatti Veyron on 2040-cars

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Watch Chris Harris fall in love with a Bugatti EB110 SS

The poor Bugatti EB110 SS gets no love. Like the overachiever who's rapidly outshined by his younger brother, enthusiasts flock to the 1,000-horsepower Veyron, while the older Bug isn't viewed with quite the same reverence as its contemporaries, the Ferrari F40, McLaren F1, and Lamborghini Diablo. It's sort of like a deep cut versus a chart-topping hit, and that's just plain wrong. Fortunately, Chris Harris has a big appreciation for the Veyron's predecessor, and is all too happy to explain why, in his latest video. Here, the drift-happy Brit tests the most exotic version of the EB110, the ultra-high-performance SuperSport model. Like the Veyron that succeeded it, the EB110's engine was assisted by four turbochargers, although it was short four cylinders. In SS guise, the quad-turbocharged, mid-mounted, 3.5-liter V12 pumped out a now-modest 603 horsepower. But, and unlike the tank that is the Veyron, the older model is a bit of a featherweight, considering it was a comfortable, V12-powered, all-wheel-drive hypercar. That means it can hit 62 in 3.2 seconds and accelerate to 216 miles per hour with only half the output of the Veyron SS that everyone goes gaga over. Check out Harris as he samples a particularly yellow example of the EB110 SS, which will be crossing the block at RM Auctions' London event next month.

Hand-made, magnesium-bodied 1934 Bugatti Aerolithe visits Jay Leno's Garage

Rare, multi-million-dollar cars regularly cruise through Jay Leno's garage, but some of the vehicles that pay him visits are more special than others. The 1934 Bugatti Aerolithe that Leno recently dedicated an episode to is the kind of machine that punctures the membrane separating cars and art. The Aerolithe was designed by Jean Bugatti, the son of company founder Ettore, and its body was crafted entirely out of a magnesium alloy named Elektron in an effort to keep weight in check. As Leno points out, Elektron is spectacularly difficult to work with because it's hard to shape, and it has an alarming tendency to catch fire. That's why more than 1,200 exposed rivets helped keep the Aerolithe in one piece as it toured Europe in search of buyers. Period records indicate potential owners admired the performance delivered by the 3.3-liter straight-eight engine - the Aerolithe could reach nearly 110 mph - but not enough to buy one. While it remained a one-off model, it inspired Bugatti to make the cheaper, heavier Type 57 Atlantic with an aluminum body. The two cars looked a lot alike. The Aerolithe mysteriously disappeared before the beginning of World War II. Some sources believe it was parted out at the Bugatti factory in Molsheim, France, while others claim it was hidden and never taken out of storage. Regardless, its whereabouts remain unknown as of 2019. The example Leno tours Los Angeles in is a reproduction painstakingly made from the ground up by the Guild of Automotive Restorers in Canada. David Grainer, the Guild's founder, remembers the members of his team spent nearly a year figuring out how to recreate the Aerolithe before they started the project. They wanted to keep it as original as possible, so they used sheets of magnesium purchased for $3,000 a piece to make the body. Building a car from scratch (and by hand) is a challenging endeavor, but the Aerolithe project was even more complicated that it sounds because Grainer's team had only nine usable photographs to work with. Blueprints were lost long ago. Watch the full episode to learn more about the Aerolithe's history, and to find out what it's like to drive. For a look at a different side of Bugatti during the 1930s, read our story documenting the electric Type 56 that Ettore made in 1931 to drive around his property. Auto News Bugatti Classics

Out with the clay, in with the VR: Bugatti's design studio is all digital

Bugatti recently unveiled three limited-edition, multi-million-dollar Chiron derivatives in less than a year, a Herculean task for such a small company. Achim Anscheidt, the head of the firm's design department, told Autoblog maintaining this pace wouldn't have been possible without the use of virtual reality technology. "We have the feeling we don't need clay anymore. With VR, we can do everything on the spot. We can sit next to each other and talk about the car, we can change the wheels, change the color, and sometimes make modifications on the spot," he explained. In comparison, using clay has several disadvantages. It's more difficult to tell how sunlight reflects off the body, for example. It's also more expensive and far more time consuming. "It's only through [VR] that we had the chance to develop the Divo, the La Voiture Noire and the Centodieci in such a rapid amount of time," he affirmed. The team in charge of designing the EB110-inspired Centodieci notably began the project about six months before the car made its public debut at the 2019 edition of the ritzy, champagne-soaked Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance held on California's picturesque Pacific coast. While VR isn't new, the technology wasn't advanced enough to replace clay in a styling studio until about 2016. Anscheidt hasn't looked back; going all-digital reduced the amount of time it takes to design a car by about 40%. This isn't a case of robots replacing humans, either. Bugatti still needs talented designers, and the number of people it assigns to each project hasn't drastically changed, but they now work differently than in the past. View 40 Photos And, the widespread use of VR in Bugatti's design department doesn't mean its cars are no longer drawn by hand. Anscheidt explained every project still starts with a series of sketches that allow designers to explore different directions and identify the one they want to take the car-to-be in. Here again, digitalization plays a substantial role. Early sketches are sometimes done on a tablet rather than on a piece of paper. "Of course, when [deputy design director] Frank Heyl and I go to lunch, we still sketch on napkins," he said with a smile. Knowing how to use 3D-modeling and VR is only one of the skills Anscheidt looks for when hiring new designers.