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2022 Bugatti Centodieci Looks Like a Deconstructed Space Shuttle Underneath

Bugatti’s history as a manufacturer of dream cars is a convoluted tale, with the birth of the original brand taking place as early as 1909 in the same place where Volkswagen’s current crown jewels are situated right now, Molsheim, France.
Bugatti Centodieci 16 photos
Photo: Bugatti
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Only around 8,000 cars were made in a little over four decades of the original’s brand existence, but each and every one of them left footprints that last until this day, cementing the Bugatti name in the history books.

The carmaker was briefly resurrected in 1987 by an Italian lawyer called Romano Artioli, and that is when Bugatti started its modern age of making hypercars. Fast forward to 2019, the brand’s 110-year anniversary, and the carmaker now belongs to the Volkswagen Group, which saw fit to celebrate the jubilee by unveiling the Bugatti Centodieci.

Italian for ‘110’, the Centodieci not only celebrated the anniversary but also harked back to the Bugatti EB110, the car that restarted the brand in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, before the Volkswagen takeover.

Initially just a concept car, the Centodieci is now heading into a limited production run, with only ten units to be manufactured in the next few months.

Despite each unit costing a mouth-watering €8 million ($9,7 million), all cars were spoken for in less than half a day, and Bugatti has just started manufacturing the first pre-production prototype ahead of next year’s delivery.

Technically based on the Chiron but with improved performance, the Centodieci uses an entirely new exterior shell that reminds of the EB110 and EB110 Super Sport, both being the epitome of Bugatti performance back in the 1990s.

The challenge for us was not to get caught up in the design of the legendary EB 110 itself and avoid focusing solely on a retrospective approach. Our aim was to create a modern interpretation of the shape and technology of that time: but at the same time, we didn't want to lose the charm and character of the EB 110. After all, the super sports car is still fascinating today with its distinctive design and technology,” said Achim Anscheidt, Design Director at Bugatti.

The quad-turbocharged W16-cylinder engine of the Chiron delivers 1,600 metric horsepower in the Centodieci, which also weighs 20 kilograms (44 lbs) less and features all-new aerodynamics, meaning that engineers had to put a lot of work in the developments of the state-of-the-art model.

Making a 400+ kph (248 mph) road car is no easy feat, and the photos showing what goes on underneath the carbon body shell only make us think of space age materials and technology.
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About the author: Alex Oagana
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Alex handled his first real steering wheel at the age of five (on a field) and started practicing "Scandinavian Flicks" at 14 (on non-public gravel roads). Following his time at the University of Journalism, he landed his first real job at the local franchise of Top Gear magazine a few years before Mircea (Panait). Not long after, Alex entered the New Media realm with the autoevolution.com project.
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