The Incredible, Invisible

Bugatti’s Final Race Cars Tackle Paris In The Name Of Posterity

- Dale Drinnon

“CENTRAL PARIS DRIVERS damn sure don’t ease off much at 4 a.m.,” I think as yet another delivery van comes within inches of me. They simply use the relative lull in traffic to go faster and cut across lanes more sharply. But returning to the site of the Bugatti EB110’s original launch behind the wheel of an EB110 is worth the risk; it’s a photo opportunity you simply can’t turn down.

The pucker factor, however, is far past sucking up the seat covers at the mere thought of smashing up the last Bugatti to run at Le Mans. In addition, we have the very last Bugatti factory race car, of any sort, ever. And it’s all happening a day before both cars leave for starring roles at the California launch of the Chiron-based Bugatti Centodieci, an homage to the EB110. It’s not lost on us that the last-ever racing Bugatti was built for the IMSA GT series in the U.S., where the EB110 was, and still is, virtually invisible.

Then again, irony has been a prominent component of Bugatti’s legend from the beginning. Ettore Bugatti, founder of this most historically French marque, was born and raised in Italy but, like a great many immigrants, took to his adopted country with a passion.

Bugatti began in the subcompact segment of the early 1900s, but in the pre-World War II era, it went on to expand its repertoire into the fastest competition machines, the most elegant sports cars, and, with the Type 41 Royale, the biggest, most expensive, most bombastic luxury cruiser imaginable. The founder lived large, too, like an Old World aristocrat, on an estate beside his factory with his horses and hunting dogs. He had his own grand hotel for the monarchs and film stars that formed his customer base.