Bugatti Centodieci

Centodieci key facts

Why Bugatti looked back to the EB110

The EB110 is the car that brought the name back after decades of silence. Romano Artioli's Bugatti Automobili unveiled it in front of the Grande Arche near Paris on 14 September 1991. The next day was the 110th anniversary of Ettore Bugatti's birth. The company built the car in Italy until its liquidation in 1995, and only 139 were made. Its 3.5-litre quad-turbo V12 gave 412 kW in the GT and 450 kW in the Super Sport. Four-wheel drive and a carbon-fibre chassis set it apart at a time when most rivals still relied on steel and rear drive.

When the Volkswagen-owned company reached its own 110th birthday in 2019, it chose to celebrate the era that had kept the marque alive between Ettore's death and the Veyron. Christophe Piochon, president of Bugatti at the time of the first deliveries, called the EB110 "a critical path to the re-establishment of Bugatti". The full story of that car is on our Bugatti EB110 page, and the founder's biography sits on the Ettore Bugatti profile.

How the design translates the 1991 wedge

Design director Achim Anscheidt and exterior designer Nils Sajonz had to stretch a wedge-shaped silhouette over the much wider, taller Chiron structure. They finished the shape in six months, working with computer-aided 3D design and virtual reality instead of a long series of clay models.

The references to the EB110 are easy to read once you know them:

• Side intakes: five round openings arranged in a diamond, just as on the EB110's flanks.
• Front: a small horseshoe grille set low, below thin headlights with LED daytime running lights.
• Roofline and tail: a flatter wedge profile, eight round tail lights and a fixed rear wing in place of the Chiron's active spoiler, a nod to the EB110 SS.
• Exhausts: four matt-black pipes split into pairs on either side of a large diffuser.

The new skin also changed the cooling. Compared with the Chiron, the Centodieci gained an extra air intake near the oil cooler, and a glass cover lets owners see the engine. The fixed wing also simplifies the tail, because the Chiron's spoiler doubles as an airbrake and needs hydraulics to move.

W16 power and measured pace

Under the glass sits the familiar 8.0-litre W16 with four turbochargers, which reaches its peak output at 7,000 rpm. Its 1,177 kW match the Chiron Super Sport family and sit 74 kW above the 1,103 kW of a standard Chiron, Divo or Voiture Noire. Power goes through a seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox to all four wheels.

Bugatti quotes 2.4 seconds from rest to 100 km/h, 6.1 seconds to 200 km/h and 13.1 seconds to 300 km/h. The top speed is electronically limited to 380 km/h. With a kerb weight of 1,976 kg, about 20 kg less than the Chiron, each kilowatt has to move 1.68 kg by our calculation, against roughly 1.81 kg for the Chiron. Our power-to-weight calculator works out the same figure for any other car you want to set beside it, and the power converter turns kW into PS or hp.

The old version of this page claimed that the limiter could be removed for 420 km/h. Bugatti never published such a figure for the Centodieci, so it is not repeated here.

Ten cars, €8 million each

The price was €8 million per car before taxes, or roughly 9 to 10 million US dollars at the exchange rates of 2019. All ten were spoken for at the reveal, which means Bugatti's order book for this model was worth €80 million net on day one. By our calculation each car cost about €6,800 per kilowatt, roughly 50 % more per kW than the 40-car Divo at €5 million.

The first deliveries had been expected in 2021, and development took longer. Prototypes went through wind-tunnel work, climate-chamber tests in extreme heat and cold, and high-speed runs before the first customer car left Molsheim in June 2022. The tenth and last car was handed over on 19 December 2022. In June 2022 Piochon said the team had refined the car over "two years of relentless development".

Centodieci, Chiron and Divo compared

All three share the Chiron's carbon-fibre monocoque, the W16 and the all-wheel-drive system, so the differences lie in tuning, body and purpose.

• Chiron: the series car and the basis for everything else; 1,103 kW and an active rear wing.
• Divo: the handling special of 2018, with more downforce and a track focus; we cover it on the Bugatti Divo page.
• Centodieci: the strongest of the three, styled for heritage rather than lap times, with a fixed wing and the lightest body.

For collectors, the Centodieci sits between the 40-car Divo and the one-off La Voiture Noire. It is rarer than the first and more powerful than both. Every other model of the brand is listed in our Bugatti catalogue.

Who the Centodieci suits

The Centodieci was never a car that could be ordered from a brochure: all ten were allocated at the reveal, and any future sale will happen privately or at auction. It suits a collector who wants the EB110 story in a modern car, with the Chiron's proven mechanicals and the Super Sport's power. Buyers who want the original experience, with a six-speed manual gearbox and Italian production, should look at an EB110 itself. For those who care about lap times, the Divo remains the sharper tool.