Last week we blogged to you about the views of the Bugatti Veyron L’Or Blanc on the streets of Paris. Now we take a look at the conception of this incredibly-clothed art car.
Ettore Bugatti, as one of the founding fathers of supercars in the early twentieth century and the creator of this iconic marque, was renowned for his love of experimentation with new and unusual materials. It should therefore come as no surprise that the Veyron L’Or Blanc uses some of the most non-traditional fabrics and innovative techniques to create its exquisite look.
Whilst White Gold is the name of the car, this is in title only. Porcelain is what creates the finely-crafted bodywork. It is the loving craftwork of the artisans at Konigliche Porzellan-Manufatur (KPM) in Berlin which make the L’Or Blanc come to life. From a heritage spanning 250 years, over 170 specialists craft precious items for today’s connoisseurs. None could be more precious than the L’Or Blanc. From hand-made plaster moulds which take several weeks of research and development, the unique porcelain interior and exterior elements take shape.
Within the walls of the pristine facility at Bugatti Design Studio the Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport begins its transformation to captivating work of art. The abstract exterior design, paying homage to the serpentines of the Stelvio Pass in Italy makes as much use of the intricacies of the porcelain ceramics as it does to bathing in glorious light. The studio lights are used by Bugatti’s Head of Design Achim Anscheidt and his team to analyse this magnum opus of motoring. They look at the car from every angle to ensure that beauty flows over and around the silhouette of the stunning car. They need to create a car that breeds desire with every line. It is indeed these lines which attract their eye and have taken so much painstaking detailing to arrive at the finished product.
For the birth of the car, precision Japanese soft tissue tape which could be removed by hand was used to sculpt these lines. The designers stretched the tape to differing degrees, which continued to adhere perfectly to the sulphucontaining plasticine. This stretch of up to five metres allowed the designers free reign with their composition. Should the designers feel that the ensuing lines did not have their intended effect, they placed a correction tape above the original line until the visual impact achieved the spirit of tension and character conceived.
Bugatti’s paint specialists were the next artists to add to the tour de force. Over a three week period, these line markers are painted by hand with fine brushstrokes in the magnificent midnight blue. This is done in such a way that the blue forms take precedence at ground and floor level, eventually giving way to the dominant white contours at roof level. The body work is then given five coats of clear lacquer.
Creation then moves to the leading porcelain crafter at their Berlin factory, where twelve elements, crafted from the finest porcelain, touch the car in such a way as to complete the aesthetic approach of this most special Veyron. Outside, the central wheel badges, fuel filler cap and signature ‘EB’ badge to the rear are crafted in brilliant bright white.
Inside, porcelain appears in an intarsia on the rear panel between the seats, signed inlays on the sides of the central console, and in a fine dish in the console itself, which is removable as it is part of a picnic set designed exclusively for the car.
Of course, the craftwork on the façade of the L’Or Blanc is nevertheless laid over the superb engineering of the Grand Sport. Its 1001 horsepower eight-litre W16 quad-turbocharged engine remains matchless. Whilst this edition is indeed a once-off, a special edition Bugatti Veyron Wei Long 2012 complete with porcelain detailing was previewed at the Beijing Motor Show last week. Confirmation was thus received of the expected-to-be-continued partnership of KPM and Buagtti.