It’s not news that Bugatti makes expensive, fast, and powerful cars.

If you’re hiding one of their machines in your garage, you’ve dropped enough on it to feed a small village.

Now they’ve taken it one step further, unveiling their latest supercar at the annual Geneva Motor Show.

The La Voiture Noire is the most expensive car ever commissioned, and it honours one of the most beautiful cars of all time, the 1938 Bugatti Type 57 Atlantic (below).

Here’s The Telegraph:

The Type 57 Atlantic, which it seeks to evoke, has attained almost mythical status within the car world.

Only four were ever made and three still exist, one of which is the centrepiece of Ralph Lauren’s celebrated collection. The other disappeared over 80 years ago and has never been found.

The new car is a one-off, and has already been sold to an unidentified buyer for €11 million (around R176 million, making it the most expensive car in the world.

To put that into perspective, that’s before tax. According to CNN, with tax, the car will set back its new owner roughly €16,7 million (around R268 million.

She is a beauty – take a look:

Whoever is taking her home must have some seriously deep pockets. It’s officially more expensive than the Rolls-Royce Sweptail, another one-off estimated to have cost around £7 million.

The key is to have a paid-for and developed donor car; in the case of La Voiture Noire, it’s the 1500bhp, 261mph €2.4 million Bugatti Chiron complete with its magnificent and unique ‘W’ 16-cylinder engine.

The cost of the development and manufacture of much of Chiron’s mechanicals and equipment will be paid for across the life of the car, as will their expensive “type-approval” whereby their safety and legality for road use is certified worldwide.

For the first half of the 20th century, Bugatti founder Ettore Bugatti made famous Le Mans and Grand Prix racing cars, and extravagantly big and beautiful machines for the rich and famous.

Looks like the company has kept it up.

[source:telegraph&cnn]