Airbags Could Spell Disaster For Bugatti
If any classic marque has had more than their fair share of trouble, it’s Bugatti. After producing some stunning pre-war automobiles of unsurpassed beauty, the brand saw financial ruin in the ’90s when they tried to break back into the supercar market with the EB110. Heralded as the most technologically advanced car in the world, the EB110 proved to be too expensive to build for the small company, and the brand floundered.
Then in 2000, Volkswagen Group, Bugatti’s new owners, introduced the world to what would become a legend: the Veyron. Officially called the Veyron 16.4, the car’s nomenclature referred to the number of cylinders (16) and the number of turbochargers (4). Producing 1001 horsepower, the surprisingly small vehicle instantly shot to top of the automotive charts as the hot topic, earning almost every car magazine’s cover and every automotive TV show’s headline. But the Veyron’s production has been fraught with problems, ranging from delays to questionable reliability; one tester encountered numerous malfunctioning cars in a single fleet.
And now the firm could be facing even more difficulty, with new “smart” airbag deployment system regulations stipulated by the U.S. government. Going into effect in September, the new rules have forced Bugatti, alongside other low volume exotic manufacturers such as Ferrari, Maserati, Lotus, and Lamborghini, to push for an exemption, however, Bugatti’s letter is unique in that the company’s president pleads that enforcing such a rule “could well put Bugatti out of business.”
Citing the domino effect of a costly redesign, increased production costs, and production delays, Bugatti president Thomas Bscher even remarks that forcing Bugatti to replace their existing old-model airbags with the newer, safer technology would result in the delay of the introduction of Bugatti’s new model.
If the NHTSA accepts Bugatti’s admission for exemption, it would allow the firm two years’ worth of production with old-style airbags. That would affect 150 cars headed for the U.S. that Bugatti plans to build before the new model’s introduction, the design of which apparently allows for the new airbag systems’ inclusion.
Commanding a price of over $1.2 million CDN but rumoured to cost the VW Group over $7.2 million to manufacture, per car, the Veyron is considered nothing more than a technological showpiece by many, although VW claims to be making money on each Veyron sold. As one of the world’s most expensive cars, mind you, and one that offers up otherworldly performance and unrivalled prestige, one can’t help but wonder why a company capable of producing such a technological tour de force would implode at the mere mention of an airbag system update?