Not long after Frankfurt, Neumann told popular science: Pischetsrieder said he wasn’t happy with the steering behavior, For him it was not direct enough, so we change the ratio from 20:1 to 18:1. That required a new steering rack, a major component change. and that’s why the press Launch was delayed.

A last minute substantial engineering change betrays major disagreements about the character of what is, as noted, a vanity project for the manufacturer (and, crucially, for Any buyer, who my see himself as a luxury-car driver or a performance-machine master, but probably not both).

Neumann had set the Veyron up to be stable and easy to drive. Pischetsrieder, a Ferrari fan, wanted something edgier. What does Neumann think of the final change? He responds gruffly: “It’s really sporty now, and I’m sure different people like it the old way But he’s the boss.”

One of the developments driven I spoke to. on condition of anonymity, said he prefers the new setup. He has worked on several supercars over the past decade and says the tires are excellent, generating the colossal grip and traction that the edgier steering demands, an astonishing 1.3 G on the skidpad.

I asked Neumann to describe the principal engineering challenges of a 1001-hp car. Not the engine. he replied. Not even the cooling. “No, aerodynamics was the biggest challenge. That the car doesn’t fly. We needed a lot, a lot of wind tunnel testing With the moving tail spoiler we’ve got enough downforce now about 100 kg (221 pounds) at the rear and 80 kg at the front at top speed.”

Rivals, Including ex—world champion rally driver Waltet Rohrl, who has worked with Piech but most recently was development driver for the Porsche Carrera GT, say all that power requires enormous cooling, which will upset the downforce because the air channeled through the radiators disrupts the airstreams. Neumann says the problem has been overcome, ‘Our Bugatti test driver says the car is so stable at 236 mph you can drive with one hand on the wheel.” Better him than us,

Potential customers have in fact been driven in prototypes for a months. The number who have signed up is secret, but Neumann insists the first year’s production. more than 40 cars, is accounted for. That’s the acid test: not press comment nor sniping from rivals but the number of people willing to direct $1 million-plus In Bugatti’s direction. Are such buyers susceptible to economic downturn? A long pause From Neumann. then: ‘My feeling Is, for these people money isn’t relevant. They could buy a house, a ship, jewelry—or a Bugatti if they are happy with it. It’s a limited edition of 300. over five years or so.’ Elsewhere in the VW group, senior figures talk about production ending not Far beyond 50 units.To net more buyers, the car will have to be mighty special and different. I ask Neumann how it compares with recent entrants, the Enzo Ferrari, the Porsche Carrera GT, the Mercedes SLR. “For me, he says, “those, and the McLaren F1 (out of production but still the fastest car in the world), are pure driving machines. In our car you could go to the opera. Our car has more luxury, and Its design. I’d say, Is better…The people who are interested in our car own Bentleys, maybe a Porsche 911. Basically none of them own Ferraris.”

The Bugatti’s Level of luxury Is astonishing. It’s swathed in heavyweight leather and has a stadium-filling stereo. navigation, electronic everything. Plushness is the enemy of the sports car, however, because it adds weight. Factor in the huge engine, a gearbox that has to cope with about twice as much twisting taste as any previous sports car’s manual Transmission, the four driveshafts, and three differentials,. So what does it weigh. Dr. Neumann? “Too much, I think well come out at 1,950 kg (14,300 pounds) But I wouldn’t change any thing: This is the weighs you get if you transfer the design and engineering vision.”

All this mass means that the sheer acceleration of the Bugatti won’t be any more shattering than the best that several lower-powered cam can manage. The new Enzo Ferrari has just 660 hp but weighs only 3.013 pounds. Each Enzo horsepower has to accelerate 4-56 pounds: in the Bugatti. a horsepower pushes 4-3 pounds—a wafer thin advantage. The Mclaren F1 has an even more favorable power-to-weight ratio. The difference, the test driver insists. is that those other hypersports’cars are just two’wheel drive, they spin the wheels when you hammer the throttle. The Bugatti simply accelerates. The lightness of Its rivals means a professional drives would beat the Bugatti around a dry racetrack, but for the rest of us the Bugatti should be faster mate of the time, especially in the wet.

Such claims await independent testing Meanwhile, a closer look at the casters of Piech and Neumann, the fathers of the Veyron, throws more light on the nature of this car. Ferdinand Piech, for his part, is a member of one of the great automotive dynasties. His grandfather Ferdinand Porsche designed the original VW Beetle in the late 1930s. Piech’s uncle was Ferry Porsche, who introduced the 911. Piech worked for Porsche and helped develop the great flat-six engine In the 911. Later he was responsible for the Porsche 917, one of the most iconic racecars of all time, But as tensions among family members (there were five of their, in the company) bit within Porsche, Piech went to work for the VW group as engineering chief of

Audi. There he introduced one world’s-first after another:

Quattro four-wheel drive, the five-cylinder engine, and later the aluminum bodied A8. In 1993 he was rewarded with the top job: chairman of the entire VW-Audi group.

He turned the giant around, from a lumbering unprofitable mess into a car company that struck fear into the competition worldwide. Piech wanted to omnipresent. omni powerful He would have cars in every possible market segment. and they’d he the highest quality. He set his engineers to building the tiniest, most economical cars anywhere—the day he retired, he drove a prototype called the 1-litre 135 miles to the companies annual stockholders’ meeting at an average of 267 mpg. At the other end of the scale, he launched a VW to take on the biggest Mercedes: the 12-cylinder phaeton. He bought sportscar maker Lamborghini and Bentley and laid plans to multiply their sales. He also, in secret, bought Bugatti. The company looked to he scooping up automotive jewels at a vulgar, indigestible rate.

Rival BMW had the Rolls-Royce name, and It may seem curious that Piech didn’t launch an assault on Rolls by making a luxury giant under the Bugatti name. The reason, according to Neumann ‘We were strong in engines and it was faster to build a two-seater than a limousine. Strong In engines indeed, Neumann had previously been head of powertrains at the VW group, and he was blasting out a huge array of new configurations and technologies, at ever-higher outputs. he put on sale a car that returns 78 mpg. He launched the Passat’s unique W8 engine. He developed the smooth clean 10-cylinder diesel engine that gives VWs full size SUV 140-mph performance with fuel consumption not much worse than a six cylinder Golf.

With this sort of engineering firepower trained on Bugatti. its perhaps no surprise that Neumann and Piech cooked up the unique 18.cylinder engine. But Piech was power hungry. “Piech said 1,000 hp” says Neumann. “That wasn’t possible with the 18-cylinder. which was basically six of our three.cylinder, small- car engines. The best we could do was 555 hp.” (But he adds, ”I have five of those 18-cylinder engines In my cellar. I’ll find a use for them.”)

So the Bugatti’s specification was really just the product of two engineers alighting on a number. then they built a car to harness it. And if it’s a bit too fat to be a super-sports-car. So be it.if its not the limousine to compete with Rolls-Royce, so be it. it might be the ideal compromise for ultra-rich buyers: dramatic but not terrifying. luxurious but not sedate.

Today Piech is retired. Neumann didn’t see the car to launch either. He left in November 2003, a move that’s been Interpreted as a push From above. He denies it. ‘I am at retirement age. Its not VW’s policy to extend it”. Piech had departed in 2002 for the same reason, Piech’s successor as Bugatti chief is different kind of leader, Thomas Bscher, formerly an immensely successful banker who has competed close to the front at le Mans, will be good at shaping the company around its customers.

And what of the new VW boss, Bernd Pischetsrieder, he of the last minute steering-specs change? If he had been in charge at the start, would the concepts lot the million dollar. 1000-hp supercar have ever been hatched? Neumann says: “Pischetsrieder wanted to carry on or we would not have done so. He stands behind it. But 1001 hp. four-wheel drive, those are Piech’s ideas. I dont know if Pischetsrieder would have stared it differently. Ask him.”Well take that as a no. Engineer Ettore Bugatti was the inspiration, Pischetsrieder the taskmaster, but this supercar Is, in the end, the legacy of two power-crazed engineers with the number 1,000 spinning in their heads

Mercedes can only follow”. And indeed, the first Veyron in the VW bugatti concepts. in 1999, had the 18 cylinder engine By 2000 however it had the prosaic 16- cylinder. for reasons rooted in the astronomical horsepower number. When the 1000-hp figure was announced, bewilderment—why was VW, which already owned Lamborghini and Bentley, producing a supercar from a long dead marque?—turned to skepticism. Many believed that 1000 hp (the actual number was said to be 1,001) was simply too much. The car would be undrivable: wheelspin, sliding, instability at the extraordinary top speed. To be manageable by an ordinary driver, It would need so many electronic anti-skid systems that the driver wouldn’t really be in command at all , computers would, And their were other engineering challenges:  making a gearbox to handle all that torque, keeping the engine cool, and so on

And the VW connection is just too much for some critics, Tim Dutton, whose family has been at the forefront of restoring, racing, and dealing in vintage Bugatti’s In England For more Than two decades, spits : “It’s a faceless corporation that bought the name of a defunct company. They dont understand the old cars at all. No one can see the point. That. the politest way I can put it. He’s Incredulous about the name of the new car, after Pierre Veyron. the last man to win the La Mans 24-Hours race in a Bugatti: ‘Veyron and Ettore Bugatti hated each other. The old man would turn in his grave.

So it came to pass that VW had a PR problem on its hands:  The car, not the engineers, had to do the real talking, but the car was unavailable, In 2001 the company predicted mid-2003 for its launch Tongues began to wag. Customer launch was put back to April 2004. A group of journalists (including this one)

was finally invited to drive the car in late july 2003. Then disaster: Days before the appointed press drive. the invitation was withdrawn, Into the picture had walked the fourth engineer in our Bugatti quartet—Bernd Pischetsrieder. Pischetsrieder,former chief of BMW, is Piech’s successor as chairman of the VW group. he had driven the Veyron and rejected it.

Now the rumor mill went into overdrive. In mid-August a Veyron ran demo laps before the crowds at the Monterey festival at Laguna Seca, California. It spun out. On September 1, Pischetsrieder, rebutting a German newspaper report, declared the engine, transmission and cooling systems to be just fine The driving premiere had been postponed merely “because the steering does not function as well as it should. Well, hey, steering’s not that important in a 250-mph car. Things got worse the Following week at the Frankfurt International Auto Show. At Bugatti’s press conference, Pischetsrieder gave a terse introduction, then pushed the car’s chief engineer, Neumann, before the press like a lamb to the slaughter. Neumann committed PR suicide by attacking journalists and their miserably researched reports”. He fumed: ‘According to everything I’ve read (in the media) about the vehicle up to now, what we should be presenting here today is nothing more than a pile of junk’ He brandished a graph to show the cooling was OK, and said the tires had been tested at 275 mph. Maybe so but it must have been on a test rig:

in mid-October Neumann admitted to me the car still had not been tested at top speed because it had been damage when it grazed a barrier at the Nardo test track in Italy.

The obvious question: Why would anyone build such a car? Surely no one sees doing 250 mph on the highway. There can be no commercial logic behind such a crazy machine, even with the bugatti veyron price tag of one million euros (at the current exchange rate. that’s $1,2 million). Not even as a halo model—a reputation booster—for the VW group that builds it does the Veyron make sense. No Bugatti owner wants it known he’s driving a Volkswagen.

Is this a vanity project then?

An unkind description. but not an inaccurate one, The project’s chief authors are two of the four engineers in the Veyron story: Ferdinand Piech, instigator and driving force behind the car, and Karl Heinz Neumann, the man Charged with creating a deliv erable model, The Veyron is, in fact, something of a legacy: When the first customer drives the car, which is supposed to happen in April, both men will be gone from the company that built it. The car was announced as a concept in 1999, the fourth in a series of one-off Bugattis that had been shown by VW since 1998, when the company acquired the rights to the marque. Bugatti Is one of the great names in car-making history, but one whose glory days were in the 1930’s. Ettore Bugatti, the third engineer in the Veyron story—though only a ghost in the wings— was an Italian who set up a factory in France in 1909 to build sports cars. An intuitive, stubborn visionary, he was soon creating some of the greatest machines of his era. To equal their record in top-level European motorsports today, you’d have to combine

the output of Ferrari and Porsche, “Nothing is too beautiful, nothing is too expensive”, Bugatti said, and that notion drove his designs of luxury high-performance touring cars, such as the Type 57s Atlantic (see photo above). These, not his racecars, are the machines to which VW claim it Is now building a successor. Ettore Bugstti died in 1947. Postwar France was no place to be building expensive sport cars, and the company died soon after its founder.