Bugatti EB112: thirty years ago, the resurrected brand dreamed of a super sedan

Grand plans

Bugatti EB112: thirty years ago, the resurrected brand dreamed of a super sedanBugatti EB112Bugatti EB112 1993Bugatti EB112 1993Bugatti EB112 1993

Bugatti EB112 1993

It’s nice when someone strives for the resurrection of a lost car brand. The Bugatti EB112 has shown that an iconic brand name does not guarantee success. A car whose smooth lines contrast sharply with the roughness of its life.

The flag was allowed to go out in 1991, because Bugatti suddenly existed again. On the 110th birthday of Ettore Bugatti, a new super sports car bearing his family name was shown in the Parisian district of La Défense. The aptly named EB110 model was as bright blue as Bugatti’s pre-war racers and the designers had traditionally curved the grille in the shape of a horseshoe. The car world was thrilled and Italian businessman Romano Artioli’s plan to bring the brand of his dreams to life seemed to have fully succeeded. A small blemish on the celebration was that the order books he had prepared were not filled. Remarkable, in a time when supercars (F40, 959, Diablo) were still all the rage. On the Autobahn, the EB110 wanted to blow a nice game with its six-liter V12 and four-wheel drive.

Second model was the EB112

Artioli chose offense as defense and launched a second model. Not a super sports car, but a super sedan. A car that combined the powerful powertrain of the EB110 with the space, luxury and comfort of the best limousines in the world. The horribly difficult task of designing the right body for this automobile fell into the hands of a skilled man: Giorgetto Giugiaro. The Italian, whose greatest successes had a particularly sleek design (Golf, Panda, Delta, Esprit, M1), removed all rulers from his studio before drawing the Bugatti super sedan, because he was inspired by the round shapes of Bugatti’s from earlier times. It was especially the fabulously beautiful, sensuous butt-swaying 1938 Atlantic that enticed Giugiaro to make the EB112 as luscious as it was voluptuous. The result, however, was especially great, because the artfully curved lines took their time to creep up from the front bumper and descend from the roof to the rear bumper. This made the EB112 look even more enormous than the regal five meters it actually had.

The proverbial lightweight flexibility of the traditional Bugattis was far from the EB112, so that the intended super sedan radiated calm luxury rather than vicious speed. Due to its size, it even evoked associations with the Bugatti Royale from the 1920s. That fabulously expensive car was built by Ettore Bugatti in an attempt to get the aristocracy out of their Rolls-Royce’s. That plan failed miserably, because Bugatti built only six of the planned 25 copies, of which he only actually sold three – which is still more than the one, conceptual copy that Bugatti, or rather Giugiaro, of the EB112 built.

.

– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl

Recent Articles

Related Stories