When commissioned, the bespoke hypercar cost US$13.4 million, making it one of the most expensive new cars ever
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Not many people can say they own a Bugatti, but only one can say this particular one’s in the garage—and now, the one person could be you. The owner of the one-of-one 2020 Bugatti La Voiture Noire now has it up for sale, with “price available upon request.”
Bugatti built the car over two years and specifically for that owner, who paid €11 million for it (about $18 million Canadian at today’s exchange rate), which at the time made it the most expensive new car in the world. [While it was never officially confirmed by the automaker, it’s widely believed that the La Voiture Noire was commissioned by former Volkswagen Group chair Ferdinand Piëch. He passed away in 2019, however, before the car was completed, and word is it instead went to one of his sons, who drove it regularly around Switzerland. —Ed.]
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The inspiration was the Type 57 SC Atlantic Coupe, of which four were made from 1936 to 1938. Three were built for customers, and they are still in existence (after one was all but destroyed and then restored) and Bugatti says “they are regarded as the most valuable cars in the world.”
The second one produced was for Jean Bugatti, son of the company’s founder and the man who developed the Type 57 model range, but there are no records for it after 1938. It’s thought he might have sold it to a race-driver friend, or relocated it to a safer place during the Second World War, but there’s no proof of either scenario, and the car has never been located. Bugatti estimates that if it ever does emerge, its value would exceed €100 million (about $163 million Canadian dollars).
Jean Bugatti nicknamed his car La Voiture Noire, or “the black car,” for its inky, dark paint, and the 2020 version similarly wears a heavy black finish. It has a spine on the roof as the original cars did, along with a tapered tail. All components are handmade, including the milled headlight elements, 3D-printed grille, and single taillight bar. Inside, it’s upholstered in Havana Brown leather, with polished aluminum and rosewood accents. It’s powered by a 8.0L W16 engine – yes, 16 cylinders – with four turbochargers and an output of 1,500 horsepower and 1,180 lb-ft of torque.
Despite being a one-of-one, it underwent full testing, including in a wind tunnel, via simulators, and on proving grounds; and the owner received it with 7,183 kilometres on the odometer from all that it had been driven during that testing. It now has 13,164 km on the clock.
It debuted at the 2019 Geneva International Auto Show; and at the Villa d’Este concours show at Lake Como, it won a design award in the concept cars and prototypes category. Three years later, it was driven on a 1,000-kilometre rally in Crotia organized by the Supercar Owners Circle. Should you want to repeat that performance with the key in your pocket, the car is being offered through a collaboration of Supercar Blondie’s SBX Cars and Hagerty’s Broad Arrow. We’ll update this piece if we find out the sale price.
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· Professional writer for more than 35 years, appearing in some of the top publications in Canada and the U.S.
· Specialties include new-vehicle reviews, old cars and automotive history, automotive news, and “How It Works” columns that explain vehicle features and technology
· Member of the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC) since 2003; voting member for AJAC Canadian Car of the Year Awards; juror on the Women’s World Car of the Year Awards
Jil McIntosh graduated from East York Collegiate in Toronto, and then continued her education at the School of Hard Knocks. Her early jobs including driving a taxi in Toronto; and warranty administration in a new-vehicle dealership, where she also held information classes for customers, explaining the inner mechanical workings of vehicles and their features.
Jil McIntosh is a freelance writer who has been writing for Driving.ca since 2016, but she’s been a professional writer starting when most cars still had carburetors. At the age of eleven, she had a story published in the defunct Toronto Telegram newspaper, for which she was paid $25; given the short length of the story and the dollar’s buying power at the time, that might have been the relatively best-paid piece she’s ever written.
An old-car enthusiast who owns a 1947 Cadillac and 1949 Studebaker truck, she began her writing career crafting stories for antique-car and hot-rod car club magazines. When the Ontario-based newspaper Old Autos started up in 1987, dedicated to the antique-car hobby, she became a columnist starting with its second issue; the newspaper is still around and she still writes for it. Not long after the Toronto Star launched its Wheels section in 1986 – the first Canadian newspaper to include an auto section – she became one of its regular writers. She started out writing feature stories, and then added “new-vehicle reviewer” to her resume in 1999. She stayed with Wheels, in print and later digital as well, until the publication made a cost-cutting decision to shed its freelance writers. She joined Driving.ca the very next day.
In addition to Driving.ca, she writes for industry-focused publications, including Automotive News Canada and Autosphere. Over the years, her automotive work also appeared in such publications as Cars & Parts, Street Rodder, Canadian Hot Rods, AutoTrader, Sharp, Taxi News, Maclean’s, The Chicago Tribune, Forbes Wheels, Canadian Driver, Sympatico Autos, and Reader’s Digest. Her non-automotive work, covering such topics as travel, food and drink, rural living, fountain pen collecting, and celebrity interviews, has appeared in publications including Harrowsmith, Where New Orleans, Pen World, The Book for Men, Rural Delivery, and Gambit.
2016 AJAC Journalist of the Year; Car Care Canada / CAA Safety Journalism award winner in 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2013, runner-up in 2021; Pirelli Photography Award 2015; Environmental Journalism Award 2019; Technical Writing Award 2020; Vehicle Testing Review award 2020, runner-up in 2022; Feature Story award winner 2020; inducted into the Street Rodding Hall of Fame in 1994.
Email: jil@ca.inter.net
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jilmcintosh/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JilMcIntosh
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