The Bugatti EB110: The Supercar Built by a Man Who Bought a Dead Name

In 1991, a man who had never built a car in his life unveiled the fastest production car in the world — and he did it under a name that had been dead for forty-four years. This is the story of the Bugatti EB110, Romano Artioli's quad-turbo, carbon-tubbed, all-wheel-drive supercar, and of the spending spree that destroyed the company that made it. We trace how a Bolzano car importer with Ferrari dealerships and a Suzuki concession bought a dormant trademark, and then assembled one of the strongest engineering line-ups in supercar history: Paolo Stanzani, the man behind the Miura and Countach, laying out a 3.5-litre, 60-valve V12 with four small IHI turbochargers, and Nicola Materazzi, the engineer behind the 288 GTO and F40, finishing the job. You'll get the full technical picture — the carbon-fibre monocoque produced with aerospace involvement, the rear-biased all-wheel drive, the 560hp GT and the 603hp Super Sport that reportedly recorded around 351 km/h at Nardò. You'll also get the collapse, in detail. Three key threads: The Campogalliano factory: a purpose-built glass-and-blue-steel monument completed before a single car was sold The 1993 Lotus acquisition and the EB112 saloon programme, funded during the worst supercar market crash in living memory The afterlife: Dauer's completed chassis, B Engineering's Edonis, and Volkswagen's Veyron with its own four turbochargers An honest look at a superb car, a ruinous business, and what the market eventually decided about both. Motor Essence covers the engineering, money and people behind the cars that mattered. Contact: motoressenceofficial@gmail.com © Motor Essence 2026