CarBrandLogos archive · Bugatti · 1991
A quad-turbo carbon-chassis supercar built in a marble factory that went bust.
Discover the storyPhoto: Mr.choppers · CC BY-SA 3.0
The story
Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Bugatti EB 110, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.
01
Romano Artioli, an Italian businessman who had made money importing Suzukis and Ferraris, bought the Bugatti name and did something nobody expected: he built a factory worthy of it. The plant at Campogalliano, near Modena, was air-conditioned, immaculate, floored in marble and paid for on the assumption that the car built inside it would sell.
Figurino Bugatti PM1 1989 · Paolo Martin · CC BY-SA 3.0
02
The car was extraordinary. Announced on 15 September 1991 — the 110th anniversary of Ettore Bugatti's birth, hence the name — the EB 110 used a 3.5-litre V12 with four turbochargers and sixty valves, mounted behind the driver and driving all four wheels through a six-speed manual. The chassis was carbon fibre, supplied by the French aerospace firm Aérospatiale, at a point when only the McLaren F1 was attempting anything similar. Paolo Stanzani, who had engineered the Miura and the Countach, laid out the prototype before Nicola Materazzi, of Ferrari F40 fame, took over production engineering. Marcello Gandini styled the prototype; Giampaolo Benedini softened it for production and did the interior.
Black Bugatti EB110 · big-ashb · CC BY 2.0
03
It was quick enough to be counted among the fastest cars in the world, and a lighter, more powerful Super Sport version followed. Michael Schumacher bought one. But the EB 110 arrived into a collapsing supercar market, priced against the most expensive cars available, and Artioli had also bought Lotus and was funding two loss-making businesses at once. Bugatti Automobili went into liquidation in 1995 after around 130 cars.
Bugatti EB110 V12 · Jonathan Gitlin · CC BY 2.0
04
The wreckage was productive. Unsold chassis were completed by the German firm Dauer, and engineers from Campogalliano formed B Engineering to build the Edonis on EB 110 underpinnings. Volkswagen bought the Bugatti name in 1998, and the Veyron that followed was in every meaningful sense the EB 110's successor — the same idea, attempted by a company that could afford to lose money on it.
At a glance
Engine
3.5 Body
2-door coupéTechnical specification
Lineage
Contemporaries from the 1990s
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