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The great, near-great, and merely wealthy convened in Monaco the week after that principality's Formula One race to admire the new Bugatti EB 16.4 Veyron at its official launch. This was the world's first chance to see and hear the compact black-and-blue coupe, which impressed with its exhaust's suave rumble.
A different, but no less enthusiastic, crowd saw a Veyron in action at the Monterey Historic Races in August. A lurid on-track spin that nearly cost the company one of its prototypes really got everyone's attention. No extrovert hot rod this: Instead, the Veyron declared its presence at the apex of the world's car hierarchy as a silken glove encasing a mighty mailed fist.
"One thousand horsepower requires some cooling," said VW Chief Bernd Pischetsrieder at the Veyron's launch, referring to intense debates between chief stylist Hartmut Warkuss and Bugatti boss Karl-Heinz Neumann over the size and placement of cooling holes in its body. As a reward for creating both Bugatti engines, Neumann was put in charge of the Bugatti project by former VW head Ferdinand Piech, whose idea it was to relaunch the classic brand. Neumann, however, has since been sidelined, and the Veyron will be finished by VW's Audi/Lamborghini/Bentley entities.
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