LOCAL TRIP
Bugatti Reunion Tour on Garden Route
Bugatti has been synonymous with design, quality and high-performance cars for more than a century. To celebrate 110 years of the brand, a bevy of these ultra-expensive, delectable supercars completed a South African road trip following the Garden Route from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth.
Recently, the Bugatti population in South Africa trebled with the arrival of six of these exclusive cars, two Veyrons and four Chirons with price tags of up to R90 million, for a road trip billed the Bugatti Reunion Tour from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth along the picturesque Garden Route.
The private tour – to celebrate 110 years of the hallowed brand – started in the Silo District of the V&A Waterfront and included visits to Stellenbosch and Franschhoek, with a couple of laps around a private race circuit also on the menu, before departing for Bettys Bay, Kleinmond, Hermanus and the Hemel and Aarde Valley.
Initiated by Italian company 2fast4you. it the exclusive 12-day tour was compiled with assistance from local companies The Archive and The Dutchman’s Car Care Clinic (a local supercar fleet management and detailing company) supplying the logistics and maintenance for the Bugatti cars.
From Hermanus the six supercars travelled to Bredasdorp and Cape Agulhas, the most southern point of Africa, before joining the Garden Route – enjoying the beauty and splendour of our own Lake District around George and Knysna; staying over at the exclusive Pezula Hotel Resort and Spa – a haven for car connoisseurs (and where most of the pictures were taken) – before continuing to the Windy City.
Bugatti was founded in 1909 in Molsheim, Alsace, at the time part of the German Empire, by 38-year old Italian born industrial designer Ettore Bugatti. His cars, produced from the early 1920’s to the late1930’s, went on to become motoring legends. However, with the Molsheim factory in ruins following the Second World War and Ettore’s death in 1947 the original Bugatti company ceased to exist five years later.
There were several attempts to resurrect the company but it was never successful. Until 1998 when the Volkswagen Group purchased it, established Bugatti Automobiles. After the EB118 coupe in 1998 the first Veyron was introduced in 2005.Powered by an 8-litre W16 engine with four turbochargers the Veyron 16.4 stupefied the automotive world.
Its successor, the Chiron, was revealed in 2016 and retained the W16 engine but with increased power and torque. Its 7,993cc engine now develops peak power of 1,103 kw (220 kw more than the earlier Veyron Super Sport and 367 kw higher than the original Veyron). Torque is an incredible 1,600 Nm and this power is delivered to the wheels via a 7-speed dual clutch transmission and a Haldex all-wheel drive system.
The Chiron has a carbon fibre body structure and fully independent suspension.
Its top speed is electronically limited to 420 km/h. Earlier this year a modified Chiron driven by race driver Andy Wallace became the first production hypercar to achieve a top speed of more than 300 mph (482.803 km/h) with a speed of 490.4 km/h.
As well as being the world’s fastest production car the Chiron also ranks as the world’s most expensive new car. Every new Chiron is personalised and only 500 will be built. So, even today every Bugatti is a masterpiece of styling and engineering.