Bugatti is honoring its heritage with a new special edition Chiron model, the Centodieci.
Not many folks remember the EB110, precursor to the Bugatti Veyron. That’s because Bugatti as a company went bankrupt in 1995 and stopped making them halfway through their production run. Unfinished chassis and engines were sold off by the bankruptcy trustee and even found their way to other manufacturers to be completed as totally different cars.
But setting aside the slightly financial mismanagement that caused Bugatti to go belly-up in the mid-’90s, the EB110 was a great supercar. Powered by a 3.5-L quad-turbo V12 engine with 553 horsepower (or 603 in the Super Sport version), the EB110 had a top speed of 218 mph and could accelerate from zero to sixty in just 3.2 seconds.
And in case you were wondering about the name, the EB110 was coined for company founder Ettore Bugatti’s 110th birthday.
With Mr. Bugatti’s 138th birthday fast approaching, Bugatti the car company has decided to honor both him and the EB110 with a brand new version of the Chiron.
“We are proud of our long Bugatti history, of which the EB110 is very much a part. That's why we’re celebrating a reinterpretation of this extraordinary vehicle with the Centodieci – Italian for 110,” said Bugatti CEO Stephan Winkelmann in a statement.
The Centodieci is built on the Chiron's chassis but features a completely redesigned body that tries to strike a delicate balance between evoking the feel of the EB110 while still providing the mechanical components what they need.
From the front, there's a new U-shaped grille that is both smaller and relocates the Bugatti logo to the nose. The side air vents are bigger to make up for it and have larger fins going through them.
There's a new front splitter and ultra-thin LED headlights that sit far higher up than on the Chiron. You could almost call them on the hood.
Five rounded air inlets sit behind the B-pillar, while the back features a brand new floating tail light design, an enlarged rear diffuser, and a new quad-exhaust that has two tailpipes stacked atop each other.
Best of all, the legendary 8.0-L quad-turbo W16 engine now pushes out 1,600 hp. That's more than the ultra-sporty Bugatti Divo.
Sadly, the Centodieci is limited to 236 mph for reasons we still don't quite understand. However, Bugatti assures us the Centodieci will pull lateral Gs similar to the Divo once you actually take it to the track.
That will take a while, however. There will only be 10 Centodiecis produced, with deliveries expected to take two years. The Centodieci is also not cheap, with a starting price of €8 million ($8.875 million).