Year 2005.
Spain sings unleashed “El Nano” by Melendi. Without a doubt, raised by Fernando Alonso, the Renault Mégane was the best selling car that year. Euro 4 entered into force that, we did not know yet, but it would be the border that now marks what diesel cars can receive the DGT’s sticker.
But while Renault lives a golden era chaining two pilot titles in Formula 1, in Europe they are to other things. Those things represents them well Volkswagen, who will present 20 years ago a unique car that marked a before and after in the history of the car: the Bugatti Veyron.
A car that was born before, drawn on a 320 km/h paper. Because the origin of Bugatti Veyron must be looked for in a Japanese Shinkansen.
Almost a decade before.
Papel y were and 320 km/h
Year 1997.
Ferdinand Piëch, grandson of Ferdinand Porsche, directs the Volkswagen Group. His career supports him. He has played a fundamental role in the victories of Porsche in Le Mans, in the six -cylinder boxer engine for the Porsche 911 and in the Quattro de Audi traction.
Piëch travels in the wagon of a Shinkansen, the Japanese bullet train that reaches 320 km/h. At that time, Japanese high -speed railway lines seem to arrive from the future. Next to him is Karl-Heinz Neumann, head of motor development of the Volkswagen Group, which shows a completely crazy idea to which he has been trying to shape in his head.
To explain the ideas on paper, an engine with 18 cylinders. What would happen if you take three VR6 motors from Volkswagen and put it online? Piëch is clear, would transform an engine that is already one of the jewels of the market and the group into a masterpiece. A engine of more than 600 hp. Enough to get its great ambition to put on the street a car that exceeds 400 km/h.
The problem is that it would be a development and a product so expensive that there is no way to fit it in one of the group’s brands. That is why the company is behind a new brand to turn its flag. Its impossible engine must arrive from the hand of a brand that represents the most extreme luxury. Rolls-Royce It is the chosen one.
But at the auction for acquiring the company, BMW advances to its buyatiots. In an exploitation license game, Volkswagen reaches an agreement with Vickers but it is a wrong decision because this group has the right of exploitation but the company is owned by Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC, the Motor Manufacturer for Aircraft. It is with them with whom BMW reaches an agreement.
Aware that they cannot do anything, Volkswagen ends up selling the rights of the spirit of ecstasy, the mythical figure that Rolls-Royce cars look on the front. They tell in Motorpasion that fate seems to have changed because on a visit to Mallorca, Piëch’s son asks his father to Buy him a replica of a Bugatti Type 57 SC Atlantic. The mandamás is clear, it is time to buy Bugatti, a brand that had fallen in bankruptcy after a first attempt to return his former French aura.
With the purchase in 1998 Giorgetto Giugiaro is incorporated, who had directed the design of the Bugatti EB112 under Italdesign. In a few months, Bugatti already presents prototypes with the famous W18 devised by Piëch. But it is in September of the year 2000 when the first sketch of the Veyron is finally seen.
We talked about the Bugatti EB 16.4 Veyron that left aside the W18 to unite two V8 and thus give life to the well -known W16. The engine, unlike the version with 18 cylinders that was atmospheric, uses four turbocompressors. A few months later, Bugatti confirms a decision that seemed out of science fiction: he would manufacture the car in a limited roll.
The figures were unthinkable for the time. The W16 8.0 engine generated 1,001 hp of power, reached 401 km/h peak speed and delivered a 1.250 nm motor torque.
To understand the challenge that Volkswagen faced in his idea of breaking the barrier of the 400 km/h, the McLaren F1 had stayed at 386 km/h of tip speed but that record was in force since 1994. We would have to wait until 2005 to see on the street the first bugatti veyron that broke, as anticipated, the speed record of the US Turbo that records 399 km/h only one year earlier.
In the end, a few km/h went above.
Ferdinand Piëch managed to fulfill the dream of breaking two barriers. Bugatti Veyron was the first car in Overcome 1,000 hp and the 400 km/h standing speed. It was the beast that the group needed, a car at the height of a brand like Bugatti, hyperluvian, unique and extremely fast.
Photos | Bugatti
In WorldOfSoftware | Bugatti Veyron was a jewel that cost 1.7 million dollars: Volkswagen lost 6.7 million with each one that sold
