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Bugatti said to bring an $18M one-off to Geneva

Bugatti already has the limited-edition Chiron Sport "110 Ans Bugatti" on the Geneva Motor Show playlist. The matte-blue coupe celebrates 110 years since Ettore Bugatti's first car, the Type 10. According to several rumors, Bugatti could have something else just as noteworthy alongside. The Supercar Blog reported that the French carmaker will show a one-off model reported to cost 16 million euros, about $18 million at current exchange rates. The buyer has already been chosen, that being one Dr. Ferdinand Piech, grandson of Ferdinand Porsche and ex-chairman of the Volkswagen Group. The rumor couldn't be ignored once Kris Singh — managing director of a U.S. investment firm, Lamborghini Veneno owner, and supercar collector — made a post on Instagram the same day as the Supercar Blog post. Next to an image of the 110 Ans Bugatti, Singh wrote, "it will be fun to see this alongside the Divo and the top secret 16 million euro Bugatti one-off that was made exclusively for Dr. Piech." As chairman of the VW Group, Piech fathered the Veyron when he demanded his engineers turn the 2001 Geneva Motor Show concept into a proper production car. After a roaring 14 years, Piech's tenure ended with a whimper when he was ousted in 2015 in an internal battle with Group CEO Martin Winterkorn. A few months after Piech hit the bricks, dieselgate broke. Last year, U.S. prosecutors charged Winterkorn — who remains in Germany — with wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud the United States in connection with the emissions scandal. Piech, on the other hand, had different pursuers: Volkswagen said in 2017 it might go after the family scion for reportedly leaking about potential cheating on the emissions tests six months before the situation went public. The same year, Piech sold his 14.7 percent stake in the the VW Group's holding company, netting him a billion. So what could the now-81-year-old ex-Caesar be doing with Bugatti now? The easy money is on some kind of Chiron-based coupe, but for a reputed $18 million, this would need to be a massive departure from the Chiron. Assuming the price is accurate, this would outdo the most expensive new car yet, the Rolls-Royce Sweptail of 2017, said to cost $13 million. The English custom kept " 30 to 40 designers, engineers, craftspeople, and testers" busy for four years.

As VW electrifies, it questions the role of Lamborghini, Bugatti, Ducati

FRANKFURT — Volkswagen needs to change to stay relevant in the electric and digital vehicle era and will announce "important steps" to that end before the close of the year, Chief Executive Herbert Diess said on Wednesday. "Volkswagen needs to change: From a collection of valuable brands and fascinating combustion-engine products that thrill customers with superb engineering — to a digital company that reliably operates millions of mobility devices worldwide," Diess told shareholders at the company's virtual general meeting. Vehicles need to stay in contact with customers, offer new services and comfort functions on a weekly or even daily basis, he said. "We will take further important steps to set the course for this in the rest of 2020," Diess said. Senior executives told Reuters the company is reviewing what role its high-performance brands Lamborghini, Bugatti and Ducati will play as the company increasingly focuses on electric, digital and autonomous vehicles. Volkswagen, which also owns VW, Audi, Porsche, Seat and Skoda, is looking at whether it has the resources to accelerate development of electric platforms for smaller brands at a time it is investing billions to transform its more mainstream cars. Asked whether Ducati, which is known for making noisy combustion-engined motorbikes, has an electric future, Markus Duesmann, who oversees research and development for the group, said: "It will not take long until we see an electric Ducati." Whether Ducati, which is a medium-sized premium motorbike brand, would offer an electric variant, depends on whether a bike could offer range comparable to a combustion-engined variant, Duesmann said. Advances are being made in battery technology which could make this possible, he added. Separately Frank Witter, the company's chief financial officer, in response to a question about whether a sale of Lamborghini is planned, said Volkswagen does not comment on speculation about potential divestments. Lamborghini's Chief Executive Stefano Domenicali this week announced his departure from the sports car maker to take on a new job as president of Formula One. VW needs cash Volkswagen is reviewing the future of these three high-performance brands as part of broader quest for more economies of scale as it shifts to mass producing electric cars, senior executives told Reuters.

Bugatti Chiron roadster could be in the works

Regular reversals make it hard to tell what Bugatti will do next. In 2018, the Molsheim, France-based carmaker said it wouldn't go after the 300-mph mark, screaming from the mountaintop that would be "missing a big part of what the [Chiron] is all about." Not even a year later, a modestly reformed Chiron reached 304.773 mph at Volkswagen's Ehra-Lessien test track, the feat spun into the $5.19M Chiron Super Sport 300+ and, more recently, the $580,000 Jacob Twin Turbo Furious 300+ wristwatch. In 2019, Bugatti said "There will be no SUV." Eight months later, Bugatti revealed it had already designed a crossover, and that "some potential customers have seen it, and they liked it." If The Supercar Blog is correct, we could have another take-back on our hands. In 2016, Bugatti pronounced the Chiron would get "no roadster or convertible" version. Since then, the closest accommodation the Chiron makes to open-air motoring is the fixed Sky View roof panels. But TSB sources told the outlet "Bugatti does intend to build" a Chiron roadster. It's not clear if this would be a one-off like the La Voiture Noire or a limited run like the Divo or Centodieci, but TSB states Bugatti is "reportedly gauging interest in a one-of-a-kind open-top variant." A one-off roofless screamer is one of Bugatti CEO Stephan Winkelmann's go-to maneuvers, though. When Winkelmann ran Lamborghini, he commissioned designers to work up the Aventador J roadster for the 2012 Geneva Motor Show, later selling the car's birth as a customer commission. The following year, he presided over the creation of the single-seater, targa-top Egoista for the brand's 50th anniversary. Bugatti has a much deeper roadster tradition than Lamborghini, offering plenty of material to pull from that designers have so far barely mined. With a rumored price of ˆ9 million ($10.1M U.S.), Bugatti's roofless hypercar wouldn't be a 'mere' targa-ficiation of the Chiron mimicking the Veyron Grand Sport. The asking price is a nice condominium beyond the ˆ8 million ($8.9M U.S.) sought for the Centodieci, the EB110 homage limited to ten units, and a good deal less than the $18.7M sum needed for the La Voiture Noire.   If there's any truth to this, guesswork says Bugatti's either doing up a roofless roadster in the vein of the Bentley Bacalar or a speedster in the Ferrari SP1 mold. More detail than that will need to wait until another source pipes up, or Bugatti decides to drop hints.