Externally, it appears that there’s a lull at Bugatti. The last Veyron, “La Finale,” was sold before it appeared on the stand at this year’s Geneva motor show. Its successor has not been formally announced, although rumor suggests it will appear at next month’s Frankfurt auto show. In between, there’s been a flurry of activity in Molsheim, keeping Wolfgang Dürheimer, head of both Bentley and Bugatti, a very busy man. We grabbed 10 minutes with him at last week’s Quail event in Monterey to pick his brain about what’s next for the storied brand.
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The last of the Veyrons are off the line. We hear rumors that there may be an announcement of a new machine this fall.
-There are a lot of rumors around in magazines, newspapers, and the internet, but I can assure you’re they are all just that—rumors. But I also can assure you that we are quite busy in developing the future for Bugatti, and it will be a very thrilling and exciting future.
-Before we enter into any future thoughts, we are still celebrating our 450th Veyron that has been built, sold, and is giving great pleasure to a customer. To sell 450 supersports cars when it started over 10 years ago, with a price tag above a million dollars, with 1000 horsepower and a top speed of 400 kilometers per hour? At the beginning, when this program started, a lot of people didn’t think it was possible.
-Do you ever foresee multiple Bugatti models? Like a super sports car, a sedan, and an SUV? More to the point, with Bentley doing an SUV, with Lamborghini doing an SUV, is there room for a Bugatti SUV? Certainly, in places like Russia and Saudi Arabia there could be a market for such a thing . . .
-Yes, that’s right. But Bugatti is a very special company. Bugatti is ultra-sharp. We are positioned at the very top of the automotive market. We don’t intend to change our brand perception and our market position. We will remain ultra-sharp and at the very top.
-And fundamentally, that could be construed as historically correct, as well.
-Yes, but as I mentioned, the price/prestige axis is one of the fundamental axes at Bugatti. If you look at the last Veyrons, we sold them all above two million dollars—you can’t do this in all segments. The supersports cars, they are all two-seaters. There is no SUV and there is no four-door sedan. For this reason, the position of the Bugatti will remain extremely sharp.
-When the Veryon arrived, it was like it came from Mars. The world had never seen anything like it. Today you have cars that we’ve tested that accelerate faster to a certain point—like the Porsche 918. You’ve had top-speed rivals over the course of the production run. As you look forward, how do you differentiate yourself further? Will there be electrification added to the W-16 engine? How do you push the boundaries of technology in the modern era?
-We strive to do everything with the next Bugatti remarkably better than the previous one. So there is not only one dimension we can push against. We need to push all of the dimensions that describe the car. For this reason, it’s going to be a big surprise—but I can tell already because I test-drove several of the cars—the new Bugatti will be the best supersports car on the planet, in all dimensions.
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Was there a mandate for this car? When the Veyron was announced, Piëch said, “It will do 400 kilometers per hour, and it’ll have more than a thousand horsepower . . . ”
-“. . . Zero to 100 [km/h] in under three seconds, and you need to be able to go to the opera house in the evening after driving over 400 [km/h, or 249 mph] in the morning in the same car.” That was the four criteria we developed the Veyron on.
-So what are the criteria for the new car?
-Do it much better next time.
-So there were no hard-numbers targets for it?
-Internally, we had some hard-numbers targets, but I am not talking about those today. The time to talk about them hasn’t arrived yet, but it will come soon. It’s like you are an Olympic champion. If you do the 100 meters and finish first, everybody wants to beat you. All your competitors analyze your style. They look in superslow motion at how you start, what your hands are doing, how you position your head. Everything.
-And some of your largest competitors are within your own company.
-Exactly. And sometimes they even have a chance to get a test-drive in one of our prototypes. But the interesting thing is that when you are leading the pack, when you are a champion, you have a lot of guys being jealous and wanting to beat you. You need to define for yourself where you think you can improve the most. You listen to the customers. You listen to the journalists. You listen to the internet. And you talk intensively to the engineers. Then you specify a package and say, “This will be the next car to beat.”
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Where do you think the Veyron most needed improvement? What’s your passion in the new project?
-Drivability and usability on the track. Brakes. That’s about it. And not to forget top speed! Of course we need to be faster than the previous car!
-What was your favorite of the Veyrons?
-My personal favorite of the 450 was the porcelain white and blue car [the L’or Blanc]. It was an outstanding piece of art. At one point, we were at a stage [in the project] where I thought, “This cannot be realized. It’s too tough.” Then I talked to the designers and the lady that did the paint job. They explained it to me, because the very important thing about it was that it had these very sharp edges between the blue and the white. We have a car with a similar paint job [here at the Quail]. This morning, I watched people touch it, trying to feel where the colors meet, thinking, “Is this real?” Stunning.
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