For much of the last decade, prices of the Bugatti EB110 have lived in the shadows of the Veyron and Chiron, respected by specialists but never fully reconciled by the wider market. The latest result on duPont REGISTRY Live last week week changes that narrative as a 1994 EB110 GT Factory Prototype, chassis C13 to be more specific, hammered at $3,625,000, ($3,806,250 including Buyer’s Premium) surpassing the previous public high of $3,167,500, which is by $457,500 or a 14.4 percent premium over the record set by a Super Sport at Gooding & Company's Pebble Beach sale in 2022.
In fact, this exact chassis previously sold at RM Sotheby's Amelia Island auction in 2022 for $2,100,000, representing a 71.43 percent growth over the past four years, and was enough reason for us to take a closer look at the EB110 market.
Bugatti EB110 GT Prototype C13: History and Provenance
Bugatti's modern revival began in the late 1980s when Italian entrepreneur Romano Artioli acquired the dormant brand, ending 35 years of automotive inactivity since the original company ceased production in 1952. The new goal was simple: build the fastest car in the world, a feat it would first achieve in 1992 at the Nardo Ring in southern Italy.
Though often confused with that initial standard GT 212 mph run, it was the lighter, upgraded Bugatti EB110 Super Sport variant that prominently featured on our September 1994 cover, officially captured the absolute production speed title in May 1993 at 218 mph, taking the crown from the Jaguar XJ220’s 217 mph before a McLaren F1 prototype (XP3) showed up to eclipse them both later that year with a top speed of 231 mph.
Coming back to the EB110’s story and the French marque’s, rather than restore the original Molsheim works in France, Artioli built a new state-of-the-art factory in Campogalliano, near Modena in the heart of Italy's motor valley, close to the engineering talent at Ferrari, Lamborghini, and Maserati.
His cousin, architect Giampaolo Benedini, designed the plant, known since as La Fabbrica Blu, at the time the most advanced car manufacturing facility in the world, its 240,000 square meters incorporating an antique wooden door salvaged from Molsheim as a tribute to Ettore Bugatti. It opened September 15, 1990, Ettore's 109th birthday. The EB110 followed one year later in 1991, unveiled in Paris on founder Ettore Bugatti’s 110th birthday.
Technical director Paolo Stanzani, the engineer behind the Miura and Countach, led development, with bodywork by Marcello Gandini, the Italian maestro famed for his now iconic wedge designs. Naturally, early “A” Series EB110 prototypes carried that design ethos. The final form was refined by Benedini, but retained the Lambo-style scissor doors.
The EB110 was a pioneer for its time, as it was the first production car built around a full carbon-fiber monocoque, sourced from French aerospace firm Aérospatiale, combining scissor doors, active aerodynamics, and a quad-turbocharged 3.5-liter V12 driving all four wheels through a six-speed manual gearbox.
Production totaled roughly 96 GT cars and 32 Super Sports. Beneath them, a smaller, more consequential group: 15 factory prototypes, split between the early aforementioned aluminum "A" series built in 1990 and 1991, and a carbon-fiber "C" series that followed.
Most second-series prototypes were run hard through certification and crash testing; several did not survive it. C13, the thirteenth carbon-fiber car, is one that did, spending much og its life on factory promotional duty rather than as a test mule. It originally made its debut at the 1992 Bologna Motor Show in dark green before a 1994 repaint in Bugatti Blu, the finish it carries today.
When Bugatti Automobili SpA went into insolvency in 1995, abandoning the Campogalliano factory, C13 passed to Dauer Sportwagen, the German firm that acquired much of Bugatti's remaining parts inventory.
Dauer's restoration refurbished the engine, reupholstered the cabin in the lighter Grigio Chiaro seen today, and fitted a Super Sport-spec rear grille in place of the original GT piece.
The Bugatti EB110 Family: GT, Super Sport, and Prototype Explained
Four models directly make up the EB110 lineage. The GT was the launch spec, 553 horsepower, in ten standard colors plus three special orders. The Super Sport arrived at Geneva in March 1992, 150 kilograms (330 pounds) lighter with 603 horsepower and a 216 mph top speed, though several were ordered with the GT's plusher interior, above which sits the 15-car prototype.
Racing produced two further outliers, and each of these works cars was unique. The EB110 LM was built for the 1994 Le Mans 24 Hours, commissioned by French publisher Michel Hommell and reportedly driven over 1000 kilometers (621 miles) from Campogalliano to the circuit beforehand. Finished in French racing blue, it qualified 17th overall and 5th in GT1 before a blown tire ended its run near the finish; it survives today at Lohéac Automobile Museum in France.
The Sport Competizione, or SC, was commissioned in late 1994 by Monegasque businessman Gildo Pallanca-Pastor for IMSA and BPR Global GT competition. Only one was built; Pallanca-Pastor raced it through 1996 before spare-parts scarcity ended its career. Neither race car has traded publicly.
A fifth category sits outside the factory count entirely. After acquiring Bugatti's assets, Dauer built continuation Super Sports through the early 2000s, including five in carbon fiber, roughly 200 kilograms (441 pounds) lighter and pushing toward 700 horsepower. One, chassis 7598, is the only EB110 built with an exposed, unpainted carbon body under clear lacquer, the most visually radical car to wear the badge.
No EB110 carries more name recognition than chassis 39020, the yellow Super Sport Michael Schumacher ordered in June 1994 after testing the car against a Jaguar XJ220, Porsche 911 Turbo, Lamborghini Diablo, and Ferrari F40 for a German magazine comparison. Schumacher, 25 and mid-way through his first championship season with Benetton, took delivery at the Campogalliano factory itself; per Artioli, he did not ask for a discount, he simply wanted the car.
The spec paired the SS's 603-horsepower tune with the GT's blue leather interior. Schumacher kept the car until 2003, covering roughly 2,400 miles, changing hands twice since, most recently surfacing in Monaco in 2025. It is the Schumacher car, and yellow EB110s generally, that command the clearest ownership premium today, a halo effect C13 now sits above.
Bugatti EB110 Market Value and Auction Prices
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The overall Bugatti EB110 market has entered a noticeably more mature phase, with Standard GTs, Super Sports, and factory prototypes, each exhibiting its own pricing dynamics. Interestingly, despite their vastly different valuations, both production variants have compounded at roughly 10 percent annually over the long term, while prototype C13's latest result implies a remarkably similar growth trajectory.
Standard GTs, with a duPont REGISTRY Index (dRi) Value of $1,820,513, continue to establish progressively higher pricing floors, while Super Sports have (dRi: $2,452,500) shifted from broad appreciation toward more selective price discovery, with three examples reaching a high of just under $3.2 million over the past three years. The segment's strongest cars continue to command values near historic highs, while more ordinary examples have drifted meaningfully lower, widening the gap between the best and the rest.
That dispersion reflects a market becoming increasingly selective, where buyers are pricing individual quality instead of simply the badge on the rear deck. With only two publicly documented prototype transactions since 2022, C13's latest $3.625 million result quantifies, for the first time, the premium collectors are willing to pay for a documented factory development car with provenance, over the EB110's most desirable production variant.
Bugatti EB110 Market Outlook
The Bugatti faithful must be familiar with the rare EB112 sedan that packs a V12 engine and a manual transmission. However, the EB110 is the only model that was realized in production form under Artioli's Italian ownership, before Volkswagen acquired the dormant brand in 1998 and moved production back to Molsheim for the Veyron, Chiron, and their descendants, like the EB110-inspired Centodieci seen above.
That VW-era chapter closed this April, when Porsche sold its remaining stakes in Bugatti Rimac and Rimac Group to a consortium led by HOF Capital, ending Volkswagen's 28-year involvement. The EB110 predates all of it and cannot draw on a shared parts bin or a living factory. Its value rests on what was built and documented between 1990 and 1995.
For much of its life, the EB110 was judged against cars outside its own story, first the Ferrari F40 and Lamborghini Diablo as period rivals, later the Veyron as its spiritual successor. The market now appears to be correcting that perspective. As public sales become more selective and provenance commands increasingly measurable premiums, collectors are beginning to value the EB110 on its own historical merits rather than through comparisons with the cars that came before or after it.
The next result worth watching lands next month. Mecum's 2026 Monterey sale next month, which is offering the aforementioned one of five carbon 1998 Dauer EB110 Super Sport Lightweight, one of the five carbon-fiber continuation cars, will be the first real test of whether C13's result reaches the Dauer-built cars too.
View All Bugatti EB110s For Sale
***Please note that the information provided is for informational purposes only and should not be considered as financial advice. Readers are encouraged to conduct their own research or consult with a financial professional before making investment decisions.
Images: Bugatti
