Vrooming Your Way through the Holidays

It's fast, it's sleek, and it's one of the most exclusive cars in the world. This year, the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 is the million-dollar present — literally — that will truly make this the best Christmas of all when it's checked off of your holiday wish list.

The high-end car manufacturer Ettore Bugatti was founded in Molsheim, Alsace, France, by its namesake Ettore Arco Isidoro Bugatti in the early 1900s. Pulling from his past, Bugatti incorporated aesthetic elements bestowed by his noted artistic family, as well as technical engineering lessons learned from time spent developing race cars. Striving to develop a car that was the perfect combination of elegance, sophistication, and mechanical superiority, the company quickly made a name for itself as the creator of the world's fastest and most prestigious automobiles.


After World War II and the death of Bugatti's son, however, the company struggled financially. It faced many challenges over the next few years and was ultimately sold in the 60s for its airplane-parts business. The Bugatti marquee went through various owners over the next few decades, including Italian entrepreneur Romano Artioli, German manufacturer Jochen Dauer, and Volkswagen AG, which is to this day the parent company of Bugatti Automobiles SAS.

When Volkswagen took over the luxury car brand in the late 90s, it made bold plans to revive the Bugatti name with the introduction of the Bugatti Veyron. As the Bugatti website states, "Ettore Bugatti occasionally made technical compromises for the sake of aesthetic integrity. This is the only tradition that was broken in the development of the Veyron 16.4."

After the Veyron was originally presented as a concept car at the 1999 Tokyo Motor Show, production for the automobile began in 2005 following modifications to its design. Today, the Veyron holds the title of "the most expensive and fastest street-legal production car in the world," topping off at around 254 miles per hour.

The $1.7 million Veyron, which is handcrafted, is as impressive as it is unique. The car has a quad-turbo, 8.0 liter, W-16, 1,001 horsepower engine with a seven-speed DSG twin-clutch transmission. This remarkable engine enables the car to accelerate to a speed of 62 miles per hour in 2.5 seconds and, even more remarkably, slow from a speed of 62 miles per hour to zero miles per hour in 2.3 seconds.

As Bugatti is fully aware, though, the way a car handles is as important as the engine itself. In the Veyron, two steerage systems, a Haldex clutch, and a rear axle-locking differential pair nicely with "intelligent carbon-ceramic brake discs with interior ventilation, eight-piston monoblock caliper units in the front, and six-piston caliper units in the rear [which] ensure the necessary driving agility on a par with professional race cars."

This exclusive car, whose body features a plethora of high-grade materials, including aluminum, titanium, magnesium, alloy, stainless steel, monocoque, and carbon fiber, is also a limited edition. Upon the Veyron's introduction to the automobile world, Bugatti concurrently placed a cap on the number of cars it would produce. Production of the Bugatti Veyron is limited to around 300 cars, to be manufactured over a five-year period. Of those allotted 300, 165 have already been sold.

So for the upcoming holiday, LawCrossing wishes you joy, love, and the attainment of your car-filled Christmas dreams.