2008 Bugatti Veyron on 2040-cars

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Want a Bugatti Bolide on a budget? Lego has you covered

Limited to 40 units, priced at over $4 million, and sold-out, the 1,824-horsepower Bugatti Bolide is the kind of car most of us will never sit in, let alone drive. There's an alternative: Lego has scaled down the track-only Bugatti into a 905-piece Technic kit that anyone can buy. Finished in black and yellow, a color combination chosen as a tribute to company founder Ettore Bugatti, Lego's version of the Bolide stretches about a foot long, three inches high, and five inches wide, so it will take up a decent amount of space on your desk. Assembling the 905 parts that make up the kit creates a replica of the Bolide with opening scissor doors, aerodynamic covers on the wheels, and even a little W16 engine with moving pistons. Stickers (including some with a carbon fiber-look finish) add a finishing touch to the design. In contrast, the real Bolide doesn't need stickers to show off its lightweight construction: Bugatti relied extensively on carbon fiber to keep weight down to 2,734-pound dry weight. Put another way, it's lighter than a Subaru BRZ and packs over eight time the power. The catch is that it's not street-legal: its quad-turbocharged, 8.0-liter W16 engine provides its full 1,824-horse output when burning 110-octane race fuel. On sale now, Lego's Bugatti Bolide kit costs $50 excluding tax.    

Ferdinand Piech (1937-2019): The man who made VW global

Towering among his peers, a giant of the auto industry died Sunday night in Rosenheim/Upper Bavaria, Germany. Ferdinand Piech, a grandson of Ferdinand Porsche, who conceived the original Volkswagen in the 1930s, was the most polarizing automotive executive of our times. And one who brought automotive technology further than anyone else. Ferdinand Porsche had a son, Ferdinand (called "Ferry"), and a daughter, Louise, who married the Viennese lawyer Anton Piech. They gave birth to Ferdinand Piech, and his proximity to two Alfa Romeo sports cars — Porsche had done some work for the Italians — and the "Berlin-Rome-Berlin" race car, developed by Porsche himself, gave birth to Piech's interest in cars. After his teachers in Salzburg told his mother he was "too stupid" to attend school there, Piech, who was open about his dyslexia, was sent to a boarding school in Switzerland. He subsequently moved on to Porsche, where he fixed issues with the 904 race car and did major work on the 911. But his greatest project was the Le Mans-winning 917 race car, developed at breathtaking financial cost. It annihilated the competition, but the family had had enough: Amid growing tension among the four cousins working at Porsche and Piech's uncle Ferry, the family decided to pull every family member, except for Ferry, out of their management positions. Piech started his own consultancy business, where he designed the famous five-cylinder diesel for Mercedes-Benz, but quickly moved on to Audi, first as an engineer and then as CEO, where he set out to transform the dull brand into a technology leader. Piech killed the Wankel engine and hammered out a number of ambitious and sophisticated technologies. Among them: The five-cylinder gasoline engine; Quattro all-wheel drive and Audi's fantastic rally successes; and turbocharging, developed with Fritz Indra, whom Piech recruited from Alpina. The Audi 100/200/5000 became the world's fastest production sedan, thanks to their superior aerodynamics. Piech also launched zinc-coated bodies for longevity — and gave diesel technology a decisive boost with the advent of the fast and ultra-efficient TDI engines. Less known: Piech also decided to put larger gas tanks into cars. Customers loved it. Piech's first-generation Audi V8 was met with derision by competitors; it was too obviously based on the 200/5000.

Delivering a one-off Bugatti Veyron Vitesse

The Veyron is nearing the end of its production run, at the end of which Bugatti will have built only 450 examples. Of those, only 150 will be roadsters, and of those roadsters, even fewer will be the Vitesse version that combines the best attributes of the Grand Sport and Super Sport models. And with a virtually endless array of color choices, no two ever need be alike (safe for the Legend editions, each of which Bugatti will only build three examples). Yet certain examples have received extra-special treatments, and that's just what we have here.
Called the L'Or Style edition, this Vitesse roadster features a similar treatment to the L'Or Blanc edition, but in red and black instead of blue and white. Which is all well and fine, but what we're really interested in here is how it's being delivered. Because while it may seem like Bugatti's created another "one of a kind" Veyron every other day, it's not every day that you see how the logistics of delivering a $3 million supercar are handled.
Fortunately, the Symbolic Motors group that includes in its portfolio the Bugatti San Diego franchise and which handled the sale of this particular Veyron, captured the delivery process on video. We'll let you watch for yourself to see just how painstaking the process (even just that part caught on video) is - complete with wood-floored transporter truck, intake-perforated protective wrap and wheel spoke guards - but suffice it to say it's a bit more coddling than your average dealership delivery.