Pebble Beach 2008: Bugatti reveals Veyron 16.4 Gran Sport and a tribute to Gene Kelly

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Given the fact that there are more than 1,000 horses, 16 cylinders, four turbos, all-wheel drive, 12 radiators and a wing that would fly a 777 already onboard, it almost goes without saying: There’s not a lot of extra room in the Bugatti Veyron 16.4. Certainly not enough for a retractable hardtop or even soft top. So, for the company’s latest variation on the Veyron, the open-top Gran Sport, the company reached back into hallowed antiquity.

‘Two years ago, we saw a picture with an old Type 35,’ recounted Wolfgang Schreiber, technical director for Bugatti, at the press presentation Saturday night. ‘Two gentlemen were in the car and the copilot was holding an umbrella over their heads. We said, ‘Why can’t we use this idea with the Veyron?’ ‘

An umbrella? Really? Pay $1.7 million and you get an umbrella? Gene Kelly must be singing in the grave.

The new Veyron has a removable polycarbonate targa roof panel that owners hang on a special stand in the garage (I estimate the stand alone costs $50,000). Should drivers get caught in the rain without the roof, the car includes a special rectangular roof panel that opens like an umbrella/parasol/bumbershoot. The roof is then buttoned to the rectangular opening above the cockpit.

Depending on your degree of cynicism, this ‘tecknical zooolution’ could be fun and charming, or downright weird. I’m pretty cynical. In any event, it doesn’t rain much in the UAE or Kuwait, so the Veyron Parasol is less a practicality than a bid for romance. I’m OK with that. Also, Bugatti execs argued, the parasol works better than Lamborghini’s whalebone-and-canvas top for the Murcielago roadster, which as far as recorded history knows, no one has ever managed to get on the car, or back in the freaking bag.

Other details from the conference: The Gran Sport will have LED daytime-running lights (like Audi’s, only, um, more expensive), slightly taller windscreen and diamond-cut alloy ‘rims.’ (I love it when German PhDs use the word ‘rims.’ It’s so street.) Meanwhile, the car has been massively reinforced with carbon fiber elements to make up for the loss of structural rigidity once carried by the fixed roof.

The first Gran Sport will be auctioned at Gooding & Co. tonight for charity. The second Gran Sport ought to go to Rihanna.

— Dan Neil

Find related Pebble Beach stories here.