Bugatti Veyron EB 16.4 - Fbg par Hermès

[Matt]

1956 saw the last Molsheim-built Bugatti pass through the factory gates of the famous Alsatian car manufacturer. Fifty years later, in the spring of 2006, the first of the new generation of Molsheim Bugattis, the Bugatti Veyron 16.4, was delivered to its owner.

Ettore Bugatti and Émile Hermès met in the 1920s, when Ettore ordered a bespoke suitcase for his first Bugatti Royale. Almost eighty years later, at the 2006 Pebble Beach Concours d’Élégance, representatives of Bugatti and Hermès met again. And this encounter turned out to be the beginning of a new collaboration between the two houses. The revival of this relationship may initially appear surprising, as the association between the renowned luxury house and the legendary car manufacturer in today’s automotive context would not immediately spring to mind. It confirms that heritage is able to survive over a time span of several decades.

“Art-Forme-Technique”, the mythical legacy of Bugatti underlines that strong brand values and a total commitment to excellence are as valid today as they were when Ettore Bugatti and Émile Hermès met for the first time. And today’s exchange of expertise, skills and craftsmanship, common to both houses in their respective fields, is still as exciting and rewarding as at the time of Émile and Ettore’s first encounter. What had begun as a personal friendship has now turned into a modern industrial design project
and an important part of Bugatti’s new individualisation programme. The new Bugatti Veyron Fbg par Hermès is a milestone in Bugatti’s renaissance and an enthusiastic and promising partnership between Hermès and Bugatti – between a “car-loving saddle- maker” and a “horse-loving carmaker”.

The meeting between Émile Hermès and Ettore Bugatti, at the beginning of the 20th century, marked an epoch-making encounter between a prestigious Parisian saddler with a passion for cars, and an exceptional carmaker with a passion for the world of horses. The result was a friendship nourished by shared enthusiasms, respect and admiration, and
a common vision of the importance of innovation, creativity and modernity.

The Bugatti Veyron Fbg par Hermès revives the historic links between Bugatti and Hermès, demonstrating the enduring power of their shared values, in the pursuit of contemporary excellence.

Since its beginnings in 1837, Hermès has always sought to accompany people on the move: on horseback, by car, by plane or most recently by helicopter… Elegance, functionality, creativity and extreme attention to quality are the principles shaping the design and production of everything we make. The Bugatti Veyron was, then, studied, “tamed” and rethought. At the invitation of Hermès Artistic Direction, designer Gabriele Pezzini worked with our craftsmen to create a car that is just as much Hermès as it is Bugatti.
The utmost attention has been paid to the reworking of the interior and exterior alike. A highly detailed approach, reflecting the spirit of excellence underpinning the collaboration between teams from Bugatti and Hermès on this shared project. Handcrafted leatherwork by Hermès is to be found throughout, even under the hood.

This exceptional car has been invested with an aura of serenity and refinement that accompanies it wherever it goes, from country lanes to city streets. In Paris, we shall be delighted to see it glide, astonishingly acquiescent, along the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré.

[Matt]

The Bugatti Veyron Fbg par Hermès

On the occasion of the 78th Geneva Motor Show (from 6 to 16 March 2008), Bugatti and Hermès co-present the fruit of their partnership: the “Bugatti Veyron Fbg par Hermès”, associat-ing Bugatti’s technical performance with the expertise of Hermès and its craftsmen. In partnership with Hermès, designer Gabriele Pezzini has married the distinctive Hermès style to the legendary Bugatti Veyron 16.4, magnifying the car’s personality. This remarkable car features an array of exceptional characteristics: the innovative alliance of a technologically advanced engine, delivering
1001 horsepower, with an understated yet uncompromising silhouette reflecting the high performance capacities of state-of-the-art engineering and design, and above all, the pleasure these inspire in every Bugatti owner.
The fascination exerted by this sports coupé, capable of reaching 407 km/h, is due in large part to its unique alliance of the very finest motorracing technology with comfortable handling for everyday driving. The 16-cylinder “W” configuration engine is fed by four turbochargers and features 64 valves, generating 1001 horsepower at 6000 rpm. The engine draws on
its 8-litre displacement to deliver a maximum torque of 1250 Newton-metres between 2200 and 5500 rpm. With full-time all-wheel drive, the car’s phenomenal power produces breathtakingly dynamic handling, with acceleration from 0 to 100 km/h in a mere 2.5 seconds.

The Bugatti Veyron 16.4 benefits from aeronautical and aerospace technologies, making it the fastest production car ever made. The car also features a braking system designed to deliver unprecedented powers of deceleration, establishing a new industry benchmark. The carbon-fibre discs provide brake pressure of up to 180 bars, combined with eight-piston monobloc callipers and titanium pistons fitted with fine steel heads and ceramic heat protectors. Apply the brakes at speeds above 200 km/h, and the rear wing acts as an airbrake, positioning itself at an angle of 113 degrees in less than 0.4 seconds, augmenting the Bugatti Veyron’s already impressive stopping power. The airbrake increases negative lift at the rear of the car to 300 kg, enhancing the braking torque on the rear axle. At 400 km/h, emergency braking will bring the sports car to a complete halt in less than 10 seconds.

This, the world’s most fascinating car, has pushed back the limits of physical engineering to offer a completely new sensation for driver and passenger alike. But it has also adopted a radically different stance to that of other sports cars: its features and finish are sure to impress the most demanding clientele. Hermès and designer Gabriele Pezzini have lavished attention on the interior and exterior of this exceptional car, to create the new Bugatti Veyron 16.4: the “Bugatti Veyron Fbg par Hermès”

A harmonious design, inside and out

The official name of the highly exclusive Bugatti Veyron “Fbg par Hermès” refers to the historic Hermès headquarters on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, in the heart of Paris’s eighth arrondissement: the “Fbg” appellation evokes the house’s “faubourg” address.

With the Bugatti Veyron Fbg par Hermès, the exacting standards of Émile Hermès and Ettore Bugatti come together for the first time, in an
exceptional collaboration: the culmination of their extreme attention to aesthetic and technological quality and performance. Gabriele Pezzini has reinterpreted Bugatti’s traditional two-tone carriage work, fostering a fluid, harmonious transition between the car’s exterior and interior design. The colour of the hood extends to the interior of the cockpit, and
re-emerges behind, at the level of the rear wing.

As a tribute to the celebrated 1924 Bugatti Type 35, undoubtedly the most famous of all time, thanks to its many successes on the racetrack, the new Bugatti Veyron Fbg par Hermès features eight-spoked wheels in polished aluminium, central butterfly wheel locks branded with the letter H, and air vents around the rims reproducing the characteristic appearance of Hermès saddle-stitching. The horseshoe radiator grille, and the lateral ventilation grilles flanking it, are made from lightweight alloys with a design of interlocking H’s evoking the Hermès “signature”.

A refined formal vocabulary
The inner surfaces of the Bugatti Veyron Fbg par Hermès have been designed and sheathed in bull calfskin by the Hermès workshops in Paris. The care and attention to detail observe an extremely refined, minimalist formal vocabulary, reflecting the tradition of the very first Bugattis and the fundamental design principles of the house of Hermès. The door handles echo the fluid forms of handles on Hermès travel bags and luggage. And the dashboard, traditionally
finished in brushed aluminium, is here clad entirely in bull calfskin. Passengers aboard the Bugatti Veyron Fbg par Hermès will find a dashboard glove compartment designed to hold a selection of small travel accessories and a zipped Hermès wallet. Both seats are covered in two-toned bull calfskin, and the panel separating the cockpit from the central rear engine – traditionally made of carbon fibre – is covered in the same fine leather. The leather-lined trunk holds a specially-fitted “Toile H” and leather case, hand-made
by craftsmen from the Hermès workshops.

This exceptional model – in toning colours of ebony and étoupe, or ebony and brick – is priced at 1.55 million euros (not including tax), available at the end of 2008.

[Matt]

NOT SO FAST!

One touch is all it takes. A single, light touch on the ignition key. And your world falls away. Suddenly, with intense fury, exquisite delight. There’s no going back. You have slipped into the cockpit of the Bugatti Veyron Fbg par Hermès, like slipping on a motorbike helmet, a dinner suit. Impossible to backtrack. And what would be the point? Back there is the last century. The rear wing rises in your farewell salute. The new century is here, nestling in your lap. A thunderbolt.

It could seem frightening; in fact it’s merely awe-inspiring. It should feel devastating; in reality it’s simply sensational. You’re projected, in space and time. Even your words ball up… disassembled and reconstructed like a Cubist collage. Not mere onomatopoeia, but impressions, ellipses. Your box of expressions just ran out of exclamation marks. Rushing, compressing. The land-scape is folded differently. Trees no longer stand straight. Faces are blurred. You’re sitting inside a glass marble. Passers-by turn their heads like
a crowd at a tennis match, watching the strange spectacle of speed. And while a thousand-and-one horses lather beneath the hood, your wheels have attained that dreamlike state of grace, turning backwards, slowly, or so it seems.
And so the Bugatti Veyron Fbg par Hermès demands acquiescence to the rhythm of this curious tango, propelling you into a parallel world of carbon fibre and aluminium, while at the same time holding you back. Above all, you are mesmerised by this sense of speed, no longer proud and wild, but tamed by the mere touch of the bodywork. Has speed found a sister, an accomplice? Suddenly, it seems, speed dives into the cockpit, casts off her warlike countenance, confers her favour upon your mount, arrays herself in its colour, the colour that extends throughout, even to the nape of your neck. The sensation is so extraordinary that even the engine’s noise takes on the quality of sound. Speed is subsumed.

Speed becomes a quiet child. She, too, sits curled on your knees. Her mechanistic posturing, her screeching, her technological power, her whinnying
cries are left outside. Fine things in themselves, no doubt. But the hood was put there for a reason: the mechanics of speed should stay hidden, gone to ground, the better to concentrate their strength.

In Hermès’s Faubourg workshops you’ll hear it said that speed is no longer merely a skill, but a natural state: taming, accessorising, softening the pure-blood mettle of horses and racing cars alike. Drawing them to us, our companions and accomplices in exhilaration, harnessed but unbowed.
Put an ear to the heartbeat of the Faubourg house, and you’re sure to catch these pleasing strains. This singular pact with the gods. Speed is no longer an end in itself. We want from it that which remains unspoken, the secret of speed: the slow-moving eye at the heart of the storm. Like the tenor’s silence, the writer’s blank page.
The Bugatti Veyron Fbg par Hermès is a creature of paradox. No sooner has it bolted like a zebra, than it slows to a halt at the first zebra crossing. A strange feeling steals over you in time. A sense of a different order of things. Speed has set out to prove her worth, her ability to devour distances, to tear through the kilometres and toss them behind. Now, she invites a more intimate knowledge, posing, turning, arching at the touch of your hand. Speed often likes to preach by the opposite example. Like a saddle-stitcher crafting an eagerly-awaited order, she’ll keep you waiting expectantly, taking things slowly, the better to fly forth when the moment comes. Like fiery horses that toss their heads and paw the ground, then race to the horizon. Speed is the daughter of impatience.
This is precisely where Hermès felt it had a call to answer. What have signature silks and smooth canvas got to do with engine cylinders and lubri-cants? With quiet assurance, Hermès brings its own special contribution to the mix – that most troubling, rare and precious ingredient, emotion.
But where does it come from? The accelerator pedal, no doubt – the pedal you have just released. And yet emotion is also born of a remarkable, densely woven fabric of complicity and understanding. Notice the slow, unhurried gestures of your hands – are these not the gestures of the craftworkers of the house of Hermès? How many hours of loving work have gone into the steering wheel alone, wholly sheathed in tow-coloured leather? Unhurried application, taking the time it takes. See these people at work, passing a hand over the surface of the leather, feeling the quality of the air between the fingertips and grain. Then massaging it, working its substance. Humming quietly, sometimes, under their breath.
This car, seemingly sprung from nowhere – part super-hero roadster, part rounded beach pebble has a long history. Now Hermès and designer Gabriele Pezzini have taken it by surprise, giving it a new line, new gestures: smoothing the shell and cockpit, relaxing the driver’s seat, softening the doors and the steering wheel, “branding” the radiator grilles. The virile racer becomes the perfect gentleman, fast-moving yet calm and composed. But this car’s greatest strength is its ability to make you feel like a child again (a somewhat boisterous child, admittedly). Its thrilling growl brings a smile to the lips. Better still, its irruption brings with it your unforced “Ah!” of amazement,
a new poetics of surprise.

[Matt]

Bugatti Veyron Fbg par Hermès #4

[Roentgen]

I believe this is more exclusive, but I prefer the Pur Sang or the Sang Noir...

[silverhawk]

I like this veyron too. speaking of Sang Noir, does anyone have pictures of it?

[Gt1Street]

I like this veyron too. speaking of Sang Noir, does anyone have pictures of it?

http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/forum...-res-pics.html

[Street_Dreamer]

I prefer the Sang Noir, but the Hermes is alright... I'd definitely change the wheels though.

[LeonOfTheDead]

...the only one I could really consider is the Pur Sang for a quite different bodywork. All the other versions of the Veyron are done just for a reason: you can't produce a 1,5 million (euro) car in 300 units and maintaining the exclusivity at the same time, so you need these tricks. but the car is still the same every time, just minor changes almost only to the color scheme or the design of some minor details, but they cost something like 150k more, and yes, you have a car built in just 5 units, but it remains distinctively a Veyron like the others. For as regards at least the Hermes, I was expecting some major changes in the interior, but it seems they just use different kinds of leathers. which is good, but...why in the standard car, for 1,5 million, I don't already have the most exclusive leather?! This car are simply too similar to the original to demand all that mondey an to be called "limited editions". They are almost like trimmings on standard cars.

[NSXType-R]

Yay! Another useless variant of the same car. Something like the Mustangs and Lotus Elises.

[092326001]

this has to be the most hideous paint job on a bugatti yet other than that pink one

[Roentgen]

They're making 4 new colour schemes for it; "indigo blue and vermilion", "indigo blue and lime green", "black and garance red" and "Prussian blue and blue jean".