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Bugatti's Monterey surprise is an homage to the EB110

Seems luxury car purveyor Girard & Co told the truth about what's Bugatti is bringing to The Quail: A Motorsports Gathering this week. As picked up by The Supercar Blog a few weeks ago, Girard wrote on Instagram, "It is rumoured that Bugatti will be presenting a new car at Pebble Beach this year that is inspired from the original EB110SS, 10 cars to be built, with a price tag of Euro 8 million." Now that we're a day away from the weekend's events, Bugatti uploaded a video hinting at the reveal, and that video is full of the EB110:           View this post on Instagram                   Named after Ettore Bugatti on his 110th birthday, the EB110 was a supercar setting new standards. Uncompromising, with a modern design and very fast, the EB110 certainly stood out among the competitors of its day. Featuring the world’s first carbon monocoque, weighing in it 125kg, Romano ArtioliÂ’s creation was capable of an incredible 213mph. Powered by a 3.5l V-12 quad turbocharged engine, it first debuted in Paris 1991. #BUGATTI #BUGATTI110ans #EB110 #BUGATTIEB110 #Campogalliano A post shared by BUGATTI (@bugatti) on Aug 15, 2019 at 5:52am PDT Evo says the new Chiron-based offering is called Centodieci, that being Italian for "110." The name not only references the EB110, which was named for what would have been Ettore Bugatti's 110th birthday year when the EB110 debuted in 1991, it happens to tie into the special edition 110 Ans released earlier this year. The special edition Chiron Sport from February used the French version of 110 years, named for the 110th anniversary of Automobiles E. Bugatti's founding in 1909 in the then-German town of Molsheim.  As Evo also points out, the EB110 established a template for the Bugatti brand Volkswagen resurrected. Twenty eight years ago — and a year before the McLaren F1 — Roman Artioli's step in the supercar chain used a carbon monococque, four turbos, all-wheel drive, and active aerodynamics. The teaser vid doesn't give much away, but there's not long to wait. Bugatti will unveil the new toy on at 11:20 a.m. PDT Friday, and livestream the event on its newsroom site. Here's an embed to the livestream:  

Volkswagen Group's Vision 2030 strategy could bring revolution to the brands

One would expect a corporate plan called "Vision 2030," looking 11 years ahead through wildly tumultuous times, to involve great change and numerous forks in numerous roads. According to Automobile's breakdown of Volkswagen's path forward, though, the plans contain some lurid potential surprises. The ultimate aim is return on investment, and that means ruthless reorganization of a conglomerate with eight primary car brands, two car sub-brands, and Ducati motorcycles. The first two Vision 2030 cornerstones Automobile mentions are near boilerplate: Production network restructuring, and "streamlining of key technologies." The latter two are the ones that could upend what we know as the Volkswagen Group: focusing on the Group's core brands — meaning Audi, Porsche, and VW — and transitioning to EVs, autonomy, and other mobility solutions. Based on the report, a quote from Audi's CTO referring to the Audi brand could cover how the Group plans to handle all of its brands: "We need to find a sustainable solution for the indefinite transition period until EVs eventually take over." The boutique divisions adjacent to carmaking, Ducati and Italdesign, look likely to be spun off. For the halo car brands — Bentley, Bugatti, and Lamborghini — apparently shareholders want double-digit returns on investment, and the trio doesn't have long to hit the target. One eyebrow raiser is when the report states, "Bugatti is tipped to be gifted to [ex-VW Group Chairman] Ferdinand Piech." Piech fathered the Veyron during his tenure at VW, and it was thought he commissioned the La Voiture Noire, but he's lately stepped so far back from VW that he sold all his shares in the Group. Automobile quoted a senior strategist as saying of money-losing Bentley, "Why invest on a backward-looking enterprise when you can support a trendsetter? A proud history and excellent craftmanship alone don't cut it anymore." We guess no one at Ferrari, McLaren, or even Porsche got that memo. Bentley is reportedly close to being put in time out, and if brand CEO Adrian Hallmark can't right the Crewe ship, the hush-hush Plan B is to prop the Flying B up enough to lure a buyer. As for Lamborghini, caught between two masters at Audi and Porsche, even record-breaking numbers at the Italian supercar maker barely staved off sacrilege. It's said that VW brand CEO Herbert Diess considered putting a 5.0-liter Porsche V8 into the Aventador successor.

The Bugatti Chiron is reported to top 290 mph

The Bugatti Chiron will have quite an act to follow, considering that the Veyron was one of the fastest automobiles ever made. We may have to wait until the Geneva Motor Show for its unveiling, but a magazine out of the Czech Republic claims to have some preliminary details, which it ran on Facebook with the holiday greetings the company distributed via email. It does not look like the Chiron will disappoint. Citing information it claims to have received from a customer presentation, ProDriver magazine reports that the Chiron will top out at 467 kilometers per hour – that's over 290 miles per hour, hitting 62 along the way in just 2.2 seconds. Its speedometer is said to run all the way up to 500 km/h (311 mph). Finding another 22 miles at those speeds is no mean feat. And to get there, the engineers in Molsheim are tipped to have squeezed 1,500 horsepower and an equal number of newton-meters of torque (1,106 lb-ft by our standards) into the two-seat supercar. Those figures are expected to come in part thanks to a pair of electric turbochargers (and another couple of conventional ones) bolted to the 8.0-liter W16 engine. Of course none of that will come cheap, with a price tag said to start at a cool 2 million euros ($2.17m at current exchange rates). Bugatti is tipped to make only 100 examples every year for the next five. Of those, 130 units have reportedly already been spoken for, sight unseen. Related Video: