The day when the Bugatti Veyron was going to be the hypercar to end all supercars seems long ago. All that bullish talk that it would never be toppled seems a little empty in a world that’s moved on to contain the McLaren P1, Ferrari LaFerrari, Porsche 918 and Koenigsegg One:1. The Veyron has found itself looking a little irrelevant within its own lifetime. Not that it was ever intended to linger on this long.
All of which makes the job of shifting the last 40 cars all the more difficult, especially as we all know that its successor is coming. Bugatti has vowed not to release the new car – or even show it – until the Veyron has sold out. Something which, according to the plan in 2005, should have happened some time ago.
Bugatti originally planned to sell the run of 300 coupés by 2011, and 150 open-top Grand Sports soon after. Only 110 of those have found buyers, which is why there’s a still a surplus. And the company won’t consider cutting short the production run. That’s why we’ve seen such ‘innovations’ as the Legend Series, a run of six one-offs, and the 1200hp Vitesse, which adds a premium to the $2m price tag.
To help shift the remaining stock, Bugatti treats potential customers to full-on experience weekends where its not-inconsiderable performance can be experienced first hand. US sales director John Hill told Bloomberg that he is confident that that they will all be sold within the next 12 months. That seems like an ambitious target to us.
So there’s still some time to wait until we see Bugatti’s response to the P1, 918, et al. Will it, like the Veyron, come with a promise to change the world of hypercars forever?
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