Above is a publicity photo of the soon to be produced Bugatti Veyron 16·4. I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if you haven’t heard of the Bugatti marque. They were a premier manufacturer in the very early days of automobiles, but fell out of the limelight by the middle of the last century. I was surprised to learn Volkswagen bought the rights to the Bugatti name some years ago. It looks as if they’re going to finally do something with it … and this effort is certainly going to get some attention.

Unwilling to miss any chance to link the new car to Bugatti’s racing heritage, the Veyron is named after Pierre Veyron, a Bugatti driver of some repute from the 1930s. The Veyron doesn’t just talk the talk however, this beast is powered by a sixteen cylinder, eight litre engine. Yes, it’s turbo charged, but four turbochargers divide the work. The output measures 1001 horsepower. Impressive. An all-wheel drive system uses all four wheels to put the power to the road.

Bugatti claims the car’s top speed is 406 km/h and they guarantee it. A zero to 100 km/h timing seems to be too pedestrian for this beast so instead they offer a zero to 290 km/h time of just fourteen seconds.

If you want one, you’d better quickly pony up a million American dollars. They’re only going to make a few dozen per year, and limit total production to 300 cars. Call me crazy, but I don’t think they need to limit production to maintain the car’s exclusivity.

Veyron photo courtesy Bugatti Automobiles S.A.S