Press release6/30/2011

The Bugatti “L’Or Blanc”

The Bugatti “L’Or Blanc”

Molsheim

Prof. Dr. Ferdinand Karl Piëch was the driving force behind one of the most audacious automotive projects in history: the Bugatti Veyron 16.4. Today, on April 17, we celebrate the birthday of this remarkable visionary.​
With the Veyron, Ferdinand Karl Piëch made his ambition clear: deliver the extraordinary, the unsurpassed, the ultimate. ​
In 1997, while on a train between Tokyo and Nagoya, Ferdinand K. Piëch sketched an idea on the back of an envelope – a vision that would lay the foundation for the legendary W16 and ultimately change the automotive world.​
As in previous Bugatti models, the Tourbillon's engine is always visible and is a work of art in its own right.
The naturally aspirated V16 engine alone produces 1,000 HP at 9,000 rpm and delivers 900 Nm of torque.
The 8.3-liter naturally aspirated V16 engine is a completely new innovation and has been specifically designed to meet the extreme requirements of Bugatti's new hyper sports car.
The new mechanical powertrain of the Tourbillon is unique in the automotive world with a length of almost one meter.
The plenum, a critical component in any naturally aspirated engine, became a key point of the design process as Bugatti worked to achieve the perfect balance between performance and aesthetics.
The new mechanical heart of the Bugatti Tourbillon is handcrafted by the world-renowned engine specialists at Cosworth.
Episode 7 of ‘A New Era’ takes viewers through a significant milestone in the development of Bugatti's new V16 engine.
Countless test-runs on Cosworth's engine dynos helped the team to better understand the performance characteristics, sound quality, and overall behavior of the new engine.
Unlike conventional early-stage testing, which often begins with the construction of a single-cylinder prototype engine, Bugatti took a more ambitious approach and built an initial test engine with four cylinders.
Marco Arnoletti, Powertrain Chief Engineer at Bugatti Rimac, and Emilio Scervo, CTO of Bugatti Rimac, reflect on the history of the new naturally aspirated V16 engine.
Excellence through continuous learning. Ongoing technical training ensures every Bugatti Service Partner upholds the marque’s exacting standards.​
Christophe Piochon, President of Bugatti, welcoming Service Partners to Molsheim. Strengthening relationships and honoring contributions at the heart of the brand.​
Service Partners together with the Bugatti team in front of the Château Saint-Jean, Molsheim. A moment of pride and tradition as the service teams gather at the historic home of Bugatti for the Bugatti Customer Service Accreditation Training.​
Sharing the Bugatti ethos. Dedication to craftsmanship, innovation, and attention to detail — the foundation of every Bugatti service interaction.​
Hendrik Malinowksi, Managing Director at Bugatti, exchanging ideas at Château Saint-Jean during the welcoming in the Château Saint-Jean. Celebrating collaboration and commitment to continuous improvement in aftersales service.​
BUGATTI Greenwich – Regional Service Partner of the Year. Recognized for outstanding service delivery and commitment to Bugatti’s core values in North America.​
Bugatti Vienna – Most Improved Service Partner of 2024. A team driven by excellence, pictured with one of Bugatti's engineering masterpieces, the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Super Sport World Record Edition.​
The Bugatti Service Excellence Award 2024 – A symbol of precision, dedication, and the pursuit of perfection, awarded only to those who meet the highest standards of service.​
Alexis Ploix, Director of After Sales and Customer Service, introducing the attendees to the home of the marque. Sharing insights and strategy to uphold the unmatched customer service experience.​
Bugatti UAE – Global Service Partner of the Year 2024. Honored with the top accolade for setting the benchmark in customer service and operational excellence worldwide.​
Power is in the small details. Hands-on expertise reflects the commitment to delivering a customer experience that’s as refined as the vehicles themselves.​
Bugatti Zurich – Regional Service Partner of the Year, celebrating exceptional performance and customer service excellence in the European region.​
The Tourbillon marks a new era for Bugatti, in which the design team is breaking new ground while drawing inspiration from the brand's rich heritage.
Frank Heyl, Director of Design at Bugatti, and Jan Schmid, Chief Designer Exterior and Head of the Berlin Studio.
The new Bugatti Design Studio in Berlin is a creative space that fosters and inspires the talents of designers.
Exterior design, color and trim, and 3D modeling are the main disciplines of the Berlin design team.
Bugatti designers are using cutting-edge technologies such as virtual reality to develop the next generation of hyper sports cars.
In order to meet the brand's highest standards, every material, color, and cut is carefully selected and tailored to the customer's wishes.
Bugatti customers and designers have access to a virtually unlimited range of colors.
The new Bugatti Design Studio in the listed E-Werk building pays homage to the long tradition that has shaped Bugatti for more than 115 years.
A 1,100 square-meter studio was created in an industrial building of purist beauty that has stood the test of time and still reflects this today.
The Tourbillon marks a new era for Bugatti, in which the design team is breaking new ground while drawing inspiration from the brand's rich heritage.
The new Bugatti Design Studio in Berlin connects tradition with innovation and modernity.
The new Bugatti Design Studio in Berlin connects tradition with innovation and modernity.
The new Bugatti Design Studio in Berlin connects tradition with innovation and modernity.
The new Bugatti Design Studio in Berlin connects tradition with innovation and modernity.
The new Bugatti Design Studio in Berlin connects tradition with innovation and modernity.
The new Bugatti Design Studio in Berlin connects tradition with innovation and modernity.
The four concept studies – EB 118, EB 218, EB 18/3 Chiron and EB 18/4 Veyron –immortalised in 2000 in the historic gardens of Herrenhäuser near Hanover.​
The EB 118, designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro, was unveiled at the Paris Motor Show in October 1998 and marks the first milestone on the path to the Bugatti Veyron 16.4.​
In the spring of 1999, Bugatti presented the EB 218 – one of the few four-door concepts ever designed by the brand.​
The Art Deco-inspired interior of the EB 218 set new standards in luxury, comfort, and craftsmanship.​
Unveiled in September 1999, the EB 18/3 Chiron embodied Bugatti's first vision of a modern super sports car.​
Ferdinand Piëch’s vision of a W18 engine became reality. The 555-horsepower all-wheel-drive W18 served as the foundation for all four design studies and could be admired openly from the outside for the first time in the EB 18/3 Chiron.​
The EB 18/4 Veyron, presented in Tokyo in 1999, embodied a new stylistic direction under the leadership of Hartmut Warkuß. The design was penned by the young designer Jozef Kabaň.​
Each concept was defined by exceptional creativity and unparalleled technical ambition, speaking its own design language – from the Grand Tourer to the luxury sedan, all the way to the mid-engine sports car.​
Not only in the exterior of the EB 18/4 Veyron are some features of the later production version of the Veyron 16.4 clearly visible, but the interior also reflects many design elements that would define the final Veyron.​
Ferdinand K. Piëch pursued the vision of creating a vehicle capable of reaching 400 km/h – without compromising on comfort, elegance, or usability. The four concept studies served as crucial stepping stones on the path to turning this vision into reality.​
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With the partnership between Bugatti and the Königliche Porzellan-Manufatur Berlin (KPM) the renowned manufacturer emphasizes the ability in creating pieces of automotive art. The “L’Or Blanc” celebrates its world premiere with an exclusive unveiling ceremony on June 30, 2011 at the KPM workshops in Berlin. This unique version of a Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport is the world’s first motor car to wear the finest porcelain on its body, as well as in its cabin. It captivates with an abstract exterior design.

The security officer nods, the door opens. Amidst pure white walls bright spotlights illuminate a Bugatti Grand Sport that is placed in the center of the spacious room. We have entered the hidden world of the Bugatti Design Studio. The team around Bugatti’s Head of Design Achim Anscheidt works in a quiet and focused atmosphere as they walk around their latest object of desire. Several times they stop, take a step to the left and to the right; they bend down and up again, looking intensely at the Grand Sport from different angles. They analyse the reflections of light on the car’s body before they step back for a moment to get an overall impression of their work. Thin blue lines flow over the bright white exterior of the fastest convertible in the world. It feels like visiting the atelier of an American pop-art artist.

The creation bears the name “L’Or Blanc.” It represents an automobile that redefines the art of design. If you look at it through the eyes of a designer, you will recognize that it is the reflection of the studio lights on the body that attracts their interest. Positioned beneath a special light, the car is set in an ideal environment that provides an excellent image of the reflections. The studio light is reflected on the invisible edges between the body shapes of the Grand Sport. In numerous stages each reflection line is translated by Bugatti’s designers onto the car body that has been pre-painted in a vibrant white tone. They use a precision tape made of Japanese soft tissue that can be easily torn off by hand. It adheres perfectly to sulphur-containing plasticine. By stretching them to a certain degree, these tapes are “lined” in pieces up to five meters long across the whole exterior of the car.

If the line does not fully meet the intention of the designers, they place a correction tape above the original line. This process is repeated until the final line has the right tension and character. Between the styling steps, the team looks at the car from a distance to evaluate the relation of the stripes to the white spaces. This is also the best way to ensure that lines flow from one side of the body across the roof and the rear to the opposite side. Even the smallest imperfections are being revised meticulously, as the final target is to achieve unrivalled perfection. Finally, the lines stretch across the perfectly shaped Bugatti like a grid of light reflections. Over the course of several weeks, the team of designers develop the final composition of dynamic bends and delicate lines that run over the automotive piece of art like the serpentines of the Italian Stelvio Pass.

“The ‘L’Or Blanc’ is evidence of the capabilities of the craftsmen at both brands. The distinctive structure of lines does not only mirror the elaborate hand painting on porcelain but also the process of modelling in automotive design,” says Achim Anscheidt.

In the next step, Bugatti’s paint specialists dedicate themselves to the further completion of the masterpiece. Over the course of three weeks, each millimeter of the marked lines are being filled by hand with the characteristic blue color. In addition, the whole body receives five layers of clear lacquer. A varying and powerful gradient of the two colors is generated because the team had used a combination of tapes with different widths. While the blue lines dominate over the white spaces in the lower section of the convertible, the relation of colors inverts on the way to the roof so that the intense white appears even stronger. Twelve elements, made of finest porcelain at the Berlin based manufactory, complete the aesthetic approach of this special Grand Sport.

Let us change the location and visit the workshops of the Königliche Porzellan-Manufaktur in the heart of Berlin. Following a tradition of around 250 years, at this location more than 170 craftsmen and specialists produce precious items, as today’s expression of porcelain art. Hand-made plaster moulds are needed to craft the unique porcelain elements that appear in the exterior and interior of the “L’Or Blanc”, and with a tremendous attention to detail, each mould is created and optimized in a several-week-long process at the research and development department. The team has to run a number of dedicated tests with the raw material to check the impact of the natural shrinkage of around 16 percent during firing and drying. Finally, the porcelain elements fit seamlessly to the Bugatti components.

“Porcelain is one of the strongest materials but the grade of quality depends significantly on the excellence of the manufacturing process. We had to assure that the inlays perfectly fit to the filler caps, it has been a challenge for us to exactly calculate the shrinkage of porcelain,” explains Thomas Wenzel, Head of Design at KPM.

The “L’Or Blanc” is the world’s first automobile to be equipped with porcelain, and the development team invested a lot of effort to guarantee that each item is capable of performing in every driving situation in the most powerful car on the market. Before their application to the car, the porcelain elements were extensively examined in regard to automotive safety and quality to optimally protect the passengers in case of an accident.

As part of the exterior design, porcelain is used for the inlays of the centre wheel badges, the fuel filler cap and the oil filler cap as well as the signature “EB” badge at the rear. Their shiny white surface blends in with the brilliant bright finish of the paint suggesting that the car would be coated with a thin layer of porcelain, too.

“At first, it seems to be an unusual idea to use porcelain in a car, especially in the world’s fastest convertible,” comments Dr. Stefan Brungs, Director of Sales and Marketing at Bugatti Automobiles. “But this is what Bugatti stands for: the realization of exceptional ideas whilst striving for the utmost in quality and aesthetics. This allows us to continue Ettore Bugatti’s heritage, who himself loved to experiment with new materials.”

Besides the signed porcelain inlays on the sides of the centre console, an intarsia made of finest porcelain is fixed to the rear panel between the seats. Similar to the exterior porcelain elements this item carries the relief of the famous elephant in an upright standing position that has been created by sculptor Rembrandt Bugatti. His brother Ettore had used the original draft to cast the radiator mascot for the Bugatti Royale. This elephant is a synonym for the brand still today. Embedded in the top of the centre console, there is a fine porcelain dish with edges finished in an exclusive diamond polishing - a technique that has been applied by the Königliche Porzellan-Manufaktur Berlin for the very first time. The precious dish can be removed and is part of a picnic set that was exclusively designed by KPM for the Bugatti car.

“The impulse for that partnership came from Rembrandt Bugatti’s renowned elephant,” tells Jörg Woltmann, owner of the Königliche Porzellan-Manufaktur Berlin (KPM) and car aficionado. “At the beginning, we wanted to integrate the sculpture in our product range, then we thought about the potential for a comprehensive service and finally the synthesis of ideas led us to this outstanding Grand Sport.” Woltmann is enthusiastic about the “L’Or Blanc”. “A number of superlatives are associated with porcelain from the Königliche Porzellan-Manufaktur Berlin: one says it has the most beautiful shapes and decors, it has the hardest weight and the whitest tone. Now, it is also the fastest porcelain.”

The Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport “L’Or Blanc” presented in Berlin, is a one-of-a-kind creation. Nevertheless, the partnership is supposed to be continued, and Bugatti’s designers received a lot of inspiration from porcelain painting offering a variety of new opportunities for the design. The price of the Bugatti L’Or Blanc is 1.65 m EUR.

Fuel consumption and emissions

  • Bolide: Not subject to Directive 1999/94/EC, as it is a racing vehicle not intended for use on public roads.

  • Centodieci: WLTP fuel consumption, l/100 km: low phase 40.3 / medium phase 22.2 / high phase 17.9 / extra high phase 17.1 / combined 21.5; CO2 emissions combined, g / km: NA; efficiency class: G

  • Chiron: WLTP fuel consumption, l/100 km: low phase 44.6 / medium phase 24.8 / high phase 21.3 / extra high phase 21.6 / combined 25.2; CO2 emissions combined, g/km: 572; efficiency class: G

  • Chiron Profilée: WLTP fuel consumption, l/100 km: low phase 44.6 / medium phase 24.8 / high phase 21.3 / extra high phase 21.6 / combined 25.2; CO2 emissions combined, g/km: 572; efficiency class: G

    • Chiron Pur Sport: WLTP fuel consumption, l/100 km: low phase 44.6 / medium phase 24.8 / high phase 21.3 / extra high phase 21.6 / combined 25.2; CO2 emissions combined, g/km: 572; efficiency class: G

    • Chiron Sport: WLTP fuel consumption, l/100 km: low phase 44.6 / medium phase 24.8 / high phase 21.3 / extra high phase 21.6 / combined 25.2; CO2 emissions combined, g/km: 572; efficiency class: G

    • Chiron Super Sport: WLTP fuel consumption, l/100 km: low phase 40.3 / medium phase 22.2 / high phase 17.9 / extra high phase 17.1 / combined 21.5; CO2 emissions combined, g/km: 487; efficiency class: G

    • Chiron Super Sport 300+: WLTP fuel consumption, l/100 km: low phase 40.3 / medium phase 22.2 / high phase 17.9 / extra high phase 17.1 / combined 21.5; CO2 emissions combined, g/km: 487; efficiency class: G

    • Divo: WLTP fuel consumption, l/100 km: low phase 43.3 / medium phase 22.2 / high phase 18.0 / extra high phase 18.3 / combined 22.3; CO2 emissions combined, g/km: 506; efficiency class: G

    • La Voiture Noire: WLTP fuel consumption, l/100 km: low phase 43.3 / medium phase 22.2 / high phase 18.0 / extra high phase 18.3 / combined 22.3; CO2 emissions combined, g/km: 506; efficiency class: G

      • Tourbillon: This model is currently not subject to directive 1999/94/EC, as type approval has not yet been granted.

      • W16 Mistral: WLTP fuel consumption, l/100 km: low phase 40.7 / medium phase 21.9 / high phase 18.3 / extra high phase 17.6 / combined 21.8; CO2 emissions combined, g/km: 495; efficiency class: G

        Bugatti

        The specified fuel consumption and emission data have been determined according to the measurement procedures prescribed by law.

        Further information on official fuel consumption figures and the official specific CO2 emissions of new passenger cars can be found in the “Guide on the fuel economy, CO2 emissions and power consumption of new passenger car models”, which is available free of charge at all sales dealerships and from DAT Deutsche Automobil Treuhand GmbH, Hellmuth-Hirth-Str. 1, D-73760 Ostfildern, Germany and at www.dat.de.

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