Ordinarily, a minor traffic accident wouldn’t even make it to the pages of a neighborhood newspaper. But when comedian Tracy Morgan’s Bugatti Chiron got sideswiped by a Honda CR-V in New York City recently – just minutes after picking it up from the dealership, no less – it received international coverage.
That’s because a Bugatti is one of the most expensive rides in the world. It’s costly even by wealthy peoples' standards and makes Ferraris and Lamborghinis seem cheap by comparison. Not only is the price of entry beyond reason, but annual maintenance costs are also sky high. An oil change on a Bugatti reportedly costs around £20,000, while a set of tyres is said to cost around £30,000. And at that, many Bugatti owners actually own two or more of them. Now that’s affluent.
One of the most storied names in automotive history, the Bugatti nameplate was affixed to some of the world’s greatest and flashiest sports cars during motoring’s Golden Age. The original French company was never able to rise from the ashes of World War II, however, though the name has subsequently been resurrected twice. Volkswagen purchased the rights to build vehicles under the Bugatti name in 1998, and debuted its first production car, the Veyron 16.4, at the 2005 Tokyo Motor Show. With 1,001 horsepower on tap it was one of the quickest production cars ever built.
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The Veyron retired in 2015 after 450 models were built and sold to extremely prosperous individuals at around £1 million each. The company says bespoke versions went for as much as £3 million. Apparently, that’s chump change compared to what the models in Bugatti’s current lineup are commanding. Click on to find out more.