2012 Bugatti Veyron on 2040-cars

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Junkyard Gem: 1990 Buick Electra Park Avenue

The Buick Electra may be best-known today as the subject of Sir Mix-a-Lot's My Hooptie, but this big luxury machine was one of The General's signature land yachts for more than 30 years. The final model year for the Electra was 1990, and so this very nice 1990 Electra Park Avenue in a Denver wrecking yard is a significant part of GM history. Just look at that plush interior, all blue velour and glossy fake wood! There are plenty of five-year-old cars on the street today with rougher interiors than this car. Thing is, not many used-car shoppers have much interest in a 28-year-old Buick, no matter how well-preserved. Who knows, the '90 Park Avenue may have been the car Royal D and Richie Rich rapped about in Scrapers. Even though there aren't any Electra badges on this car, the Park Avenue didn't become a separate model until the 1991 model year. GM luxury cars had these "coffin handle" door pulls for much of the 1970s and 1980s. Power, all 165 horsepower of it, came from a 3.8-liter Buick V6 driving the front wheels. This car was built on the same platform as the mid-1980s Cadillac DeVille and Oldsmobile 98. This car has the "Concert Sound II" audio system, complete with auto-reverse-equipped cassette deck. Car CD players were still rare, costly items in 1990. Plenty of Detroit cars got these "wire wheel" hubcaps during this era. Buick was the fifth-most-reliable marque in 1990. Hooray! Here's your address for success: Park Avenue. Related Video: Featured Gallery Junked 1990 Buick Park Avenue View 19 Photos Auto News Bugatti Automotive History Sedan

Bugatti Tourbillon Preview: 1,000-hp V16, 800-hp electric motors, gorgeous interior

LONG BEACH, Calif. — A few months ago, Bugatti invited us out to a studio in Long Beach, California, to get an early look at a prototype version of its latest creation, the Tourbillon. As the follow-up to two of the most iconic luxury-performance vehicles of the past two decades, the Tourbillon has some sizable shoes to fill, as both the Veyron and the Chiron were standard bearers of hypercar engineering during their respective eras. The high-performance landscape has also gone through some fairly dramatic changes in the time since. While the near-1,500 horsepower produced by the ChironÂ’s quad-turbocharged W16 was otherworldly in 2016, it seems notably less remarkable at a point in time when there are luxury sedans capable of producing more than 1,200 horsepower and the worldÂ’s quickest production vehicle offers nearly 2,000 hp. The paradigm shift brought on by high-performance EVs has not gone unnoticed by Bugatti, though. In 2022, the automaker formed a technical alliance with Rimac, the Croatian EV upstart that produces the world-beating Nevera. In its early stages, the partnership tasked Rimac with the development of an all-new powerplant for what would eventually become the Tourbillon, but the agreement soon evolved to effectively give Rimac founder and CEO Mate Rimac full control of the Bugatti brand through a 55/45 split with Porsche, BugattiÂ’s prior parent company. Bugatti Tourbillon action group View 7 Photos This, of course, begs a question: How do you follow up an automotive icon like the Chiron with something that feels equally unprecedented when your other company has upstaged that car with its own technology? As Bugatti design director Frank Heyl explained it, you focus less on the stats and more on the experience. “Yes, obviously it will be extremely fast. But I donÂ’t really like to talk about the numbers. ItÂ’s more about how you feel in the driverÂ’s seat, the sensations – the haptics of the switchgear, the smell of the leather, and the sounds and vibrations of the engine. ItÂ’s an emotional experience that canÂ’t really be expressed in numbers.”    That experience is driven in no small part by the TourbillonÂ’s jaw-dropping hybrid powertrain. At the front end of the Tourbillon, thereÂ’s a dual-motor and dual-inverter setup thatÂ’s good for 600 horsepower, along with a third electric motor in the rear that delivers an additional 200 hp of its own.

Bugatti is planning several additional variants of the Chiron

Bugatti confirmed it's done trying to build the fastest car in the world, but that doesn't mean it will shift its focus away from performance. The company's chief executive confirmed additional high-performance variants of the Chiron are on the way, and they'll each explore different ways to go fast. Speaking with Roadshow, Bugatti CEO Stephan Winkelmann admitted putting such a big emphasis on top speed was a mistake. "If you look back at the 1920s and the 1930s, Ettore Bugatti has never done only top speed," he pointed out. "Performance is not just going straight and going very fast." Bugatti started moving way from jaw-dropping top speed figures when it introduced the Divo, a Chiron-based model developed with handling in mind, in 2018. Looking ahead, the company will continue to release different variants of the Chiron developed to excel in other performance realms. That seemingly means the 304-mph Chiron Super Sport 300+ will remain the company's fastest car. While he stopped short of laying out the company's product plan, Winkelmann outlined a variant with an impressive power-to-weight ratio, and one that puts an unprecedented priority on handling. There will be others, too; he predicted the Chiron's basic platform can soldier on until about 2025, though production is strictly limited to 500 examples, and a good chunk of the run has already been claimed. Bugatti has time to figure out which direction the Chiron's successor should go in. In the meantime, its research and development department has already started thinking about a second model that will, in Winkelmann's words, be a different type of car. While rumors point to an SUV, he hinted the model could arrive as a "two-plus-two for daily use, with more room and more luggage compartment," and it might receive some form of electrification to keep fuel economy and emissions in check.