The Centodieci’s styling pays homage to the wedge-shaped Bugatti EB110 from 1990.
The Centodieci’s styling pays homage to the wedge-shaped Bugatti EB110 from 1990.
Image: Supplied

Bugatti launched a new special-edition version of the Chiron called the Centodieci, at the Monterey Car Week in California, US, earlier this month.

After a four-decade hiatus, the French sports car brand was revived in 1990 when the Bugatti EB110 was unveiled on company founder Ettore Bugatti’s (EB) 110th birthday (110). Volkswagen Group acquired the brand in 1998.

The special-edition Centodieci (which means 110 in Italian) celebrates the EB110’s contribution to the brand. The Centodieci is based on the mid-engined, two-seater Bugatti Chiron but with the bodywork heavily adapted to pay homage to the flat and wedge-shaped EB110.

Apart from the styling changes, the 8.0l W16 engine makes an astounding 1,176kW, which is 72kW more than in the Chiron. The car also weighs less than the Chiron thanks to lightweight windshield wipers and stabilisers made of carbon fibre.

This enables the Centodieci to sprint 0-100 km/h in just 2.4 seconds, 0-200 in just 6.1 secs, 0-300 in 13.1 seconds, and reach an electronically governed 380km/h top speed.

“With the Centodieci, we pay homage to the EB110 super sports car, which was built in the 1990s and is very much a part of our tradition-steeped history,” says Stephan Winkelmann, president of Bugatti.

“With the EB110, Bugatti catapulted itself to the top of the automotive world once again after 1956 with a new model.”

It was a crucial interim step for the production facility that was newly founded in Molsheim in 1998, taking Bugatti back to its roots in France, and the first hyper sports car of modern times — the Veyron.

Only 10 Bugatti Centodiecis will be built, each at a price of  $8.9m (R135m) and, sorry, they’re sold out already.

This article was originally published by Business Day.

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