By Basem Wasef
This is the Bugatti F.K.P. Hommage, the second car to be commissioned through the French marque's new Programme Solitaire, a new, ultra-exclusive division dedicated to creating bespoke, coachbuilt hypercars. This one-off that was last week, pays tribute to one of the most influential automotive personalities of the 20th century, Ferdinand Karl Piëch.
Decades into his seemingly limitless career, the Austrian impresario acted on the urge to build a vehicle of inconceivable capability. The man responsible for Porsche 917 Longtails roaring down the Mulsanne straight at 240 mph, innovative “VR” powerplants for Volkswagen, and the groundbreaking all-wheel drive system powering the monstrous Audi S1 Quattro Group B rally car would ultimately acquire the Bugatti brand in 1998.
Piëch’s pièce de resistance started life as a napkin sketch on the Japanese bullet train and became the Veyron, a moonshot whose never-before-achieved goals were to produce 1,000 horsepower and hit 250 mph, yet be civilized enough to pull up at the opera in style.
It’s been two decades since the Veyron wowed the cognoscenti. Among those who is one particularly passionate collector who commissioned a one-off that poses an intriguing idea: What if Bugatti built a facelift of the O.G. hypercar before moving on to the Chiron?
Unlike Bugatti’s other Solitaire project, dubbed Brouillard, the F.K.P. is inspired by the Veyron. Every carbon fiber body panel has been resculpted for a sleeker, more smoothed-out reinterpretation of the first modern Bugatti’s lines. Bugatti Director of Design Frank Heyl tells duPont Registry that the Veyron was already a novel design when it was first unveiled as a concept in 1999.
“Before the Veyron supercars were perceived as this forward-angled wedge shape still inspired by the works of Marcello Gandini,” he says. “We recall the Lancia Stratos Zero, Ferrari Modulo, or even some of the first Countaches. We did the opposite; it was a novel lean back, a body posture we wanted to capture here.”
The reimagined one-off is finished in the same paint scheme as one of the collector’s beloved Veyrons, though this time around, a novel production technique was employed. Starting with bare carbon fiber panels, the finish leverages advanced layering techniques using a silver aluminum-based coat underneath a clearcoat that’s tinted red.
The black portions are actually black-tinted exposed carbon fiber that incorporates a 10% black pigment into the clearcoat. Heyl notes that the traditional horseshoe grille found up front, hewn from a block of solid aluminum, has also been reworked into a more three-dimensional shape.
The Veyron redux now sits on updated wheel sizes (20-inch front and 21-inch rear), wrapped in the latest Michelin tire technology, which requires less expensive replacement than the original model.
The resculpted bodywork hides the 1,600 metric horsepower, quad-turbocharged powerplant from the Chiron Super Sport, the engine that broke new ground by shattering the 300 mph barrier.
Inside, the F.K.P Hommage is upholstered in a woven fabric sourced from Paris, which flies in the face of conventional leather materials. While the metal-turned dashboard and knurled knobs recall the Chiron, the round steering wheel recalls and is a throwback to the original Veyron design.
However, the real mic drop comes in the form of a custom 41mm Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Tourbillon sitting atop the center panel. Though it has no electrical connection to the car, its enclosure rotates on a diagonal axis several times per hour to keep the timepiece perennially wound.
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The owner, who will keep this very special one-off in Europe, remains unnamed but is described by Heyl as a consummate collector and Bugatti enthusiast whose collaboration required over two years of back-and-forth with the design and engineering teams.
“As you can imagine, with these Solitaire programs, there needs to be discipline in terms of how many loops we can go through; there must be a similar understanding of the project.
With this particular customer, who is a huge Veyron fan and connoisseur, there was an immediate understanding of the values we want to bring into these cars,” He reveals. “We wanted to honor Ferdinand Piëch and the ways he worked. Even if something didn’t seem possible, he would never give up.”
