While perhaps rightly overshadowed by the current revival of "The Marque", the efforts of Romano Artioli cannot be discounted. His goal would be to build the ultimate road car for the 1990's. To that end, Artioli assembled an unparalleled group of talents in pursuit of building a supercar worthy of the badge.
These leading lights included Paolo Stanzani, famed engineer of the Lamborghini Miura, Espada, and Countach, who would be technical director of the newly created Bugatti Automobili S.P.A. Chassis development would be carried out by Tecnostile, headed by Tiziano Benedetti, Achille Bevini, and Oliviero Pedrazzi. The trio had worked on the Lamborghini Miura chassis and engine development and had subsequently established their own company.
Development would begin on the chassis and mechanicals in 1987 and a number of styling houses were solicited for design proposals including ITAL Design, Bertone, as well as Paolo Martin and Marcello Gandini. However, it was Gandini's work that would be chosen by the team.
 |
| Gandini's Bugatti EB110, in profile |
While much was written about the superlative specifications of the car, they are still worth noting here. The car was initially constructed with an aluminum honeycomb chassis but was redesigned in carbon fiber. Power was provided by a bespoke 3.5 liter V12, with four turbochargers, that produced more than 550bhp. Delivering that output to the pavement was the task of a 6-speed manual transmission routed through a fulltime all-wheel-drive system. All of this made the car capable of a 221mph top speed and a 0-60 run in 3.2 seconds. Blistering performance for its day.
The original styling proposed by Gandini was a classic wedge shape that concealed a number of hidden aerodynamic tricks up its sleeve. Deep recesses in the nose of the car provided airflow to elements of the cooling systems and a fan-assisted rear diffuser aided in road-holding. The car also had an "active" spoiler at the rear which rose above the deck at speed. Its lines were clean, if a bit brutish, and represented one of Gandini's better late career designs.
 |
| Gandini's Bugatti EB110, rear quarter view |
The first four prototypes of this "new" Bugatti were clothed in Gandini's taught, doorstop styling and went through extensive testing in that form. Rumors started swirling and the car magazines of the day reported accordingly, with some speculative renderings even finding their way to press that weren't far off the mark.
However, as company owner, Artioli was not impressed by Gandini's angular design language incorporating a shovel nose and flared rear wheel arches and demanded revisions. So Gandini made a second iteration of the design with softer lines, revised front and rear lights as well as subtly different proportions for the rear wheel arches, styling cues also visible in the Maserati Chubasco of 1991. This was still not enough to appease the boss and Gandini lost patience with the whole endeavor.
 |
| Gandini's revised Bugatti EB110 styling model |
Thus the revived incarnation of Bugatti would not have a body penned by the Maestro, at least not directly. Romano Artioli would end up leaning on Gianpaolo Benedini, an architect who had designed the company's iconic "Blue Factory", to make the changes that he asked for. The final vehicle design replaced the network of cooling slots on the bonnet with ducts in the front fenders, leading into the outer sides of the two large fixed headlamps, which had replaced the early prototype pop-up head lamps. In a peculiar nod to the original Bugatti radiator design, a small horseshoe shaped vent was also added to the lower region of the front fascia. Odd, pill shaped vents and lighting were added to the rear of the car as well.
This marked the first of two occasions that Gandini was snubbed by a client, late in his career. The same thing would happen during the development of what became the Lamborghini Diablo as that company came into the ownership of Chrysler. They also revised Gandini's design, employing internal staff to make the changes.
He would have the last laugh in a way though, selling a variant of the Diablo's design to Giorgio Moroder (of Italo-disco fame) and Claudio Zampoli. This became the Cizeta V16T, which was another one of the wildest super/hyper-cars of early 90's, even crazier than the Bugatti...
 |
| The four Gandini Bugatti EB110 prototypes, flanking a 'production' EB110 SS |
The Bugatti EB 110 GT, in its final form, would be unveiled on September 15th of 1991, at both Versailles and in front of the Grande Arche de la Défense, near Paris, exactly 110 years after Ettore Bugatti's birth. However, like many similar ventures of the day, the company was liquidated by 1995. 139 examples were produced by Bugatti S.P.A., with another dozen or so being made in carbon fiber by Dauer of Germany.
In this author's opinion, neither the original design nor the subsequent revisions by both Gandini or Benedini had much in the way of stylistic relation to their namesake. However, second guessing the "maestro" was probably a bad move and diminished the prestige of the new car considerably. Gandini's original design was perfectly suited to its time and would no doubt have been celebrated to the same degree his work for Cizeta has.
In Romano Artioli's defense, he did go on to save Lotus from oblivion and gave us the wonderful "Elise", which was named after his Grand Daughter. With that, he may have redeemed himself...
Bugatti would be resurrected anew in the millennium, this time by Germans. This new incarnation has been responsible for producing some of the most incredible road cars ever devised. For the time being, they continue in their pursuit.
Elisa is Romano Artioli’s granddaughter, not daughter.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the correction!
Delete