Bugatti----------------------------

I thought Bugatti was a French nameplate, owned by the Germans. Is that not the case?

 

I always thought it was an Italian car company, that moved its assembly line to france, and is now owned by the Germans. The reason is because the Buggatti was featured at the italian auto show.

 

Definitely a French company always, although Mr. Bugatti had Italian linage ... or something.

Do not care who owns it now as it is NOT the same company ... just a badge.

Pete

 

I think VW is losing it. The Veryon is years late, won't work as promised, and at 1.2 million is a tad overpriced for a VW. To futher dilute the brand with an entry level Bug, the second rebadging of the Gallardo is a joke. I think that if VW wanted a SUPERCAR they should have made a road version of the Speed 8 Bentley.

 

**** a road version of the Speed 8 Bentley would be scary!!!!

Rebadging anything doesn't work ... look what happened to the British car industry ...

Pete

 

I think I understand the strategy of VW. It is no fun to be tagged as the "peoples car" and only put out mass produces cars (especially if you are successful at it and earn a lot of money). If I would be at the helm of VW (god forbid) I would accept a lot of (relatively) small endeavors to see where I could break out of the mould. The Pheathon (sp) will lose money for a long time, Lamborghini and Bugatti probably also, Bentley might do a bit better, but somewhere there is a break-through waiting to happen. You just don't know where. On the scale of VW, all of these probes are probably within the scale of R&D budgets. So, why not have fun trying.

 

Funny, isn't it? Here we have a model for how not to run a car company, i.e., GM. And then, we see companies like VW, MB, and BMW becoming like GM, i.e, a large umbrella that covers a lot of ground.

What makes it more interesting is that Porsche, which is right under their nose, is one of the most profitable car companies.

Do you remember the future books of the 80s? I think one was called the third wave or something like that. I have never forgotten that one key prediction which was that decentralization was the wave of the future, not the ITT centralization of the 50s, 60s, and 70s. The key point being decreased information costs. Being smart and nimble has turned out to be more important than having a lot of money in the bank.

May you live in interesting times....

 

Dr. Tax,

Are you referring to the book, 'The Third Wave' by Alvin Toefler? We do live in interesting times, where flexibility, opportunity and ability to execute an idea well rules.

ctk

 

Yes, that's the one. I seem to recall a lot of bs, but the point about decentralization stuck. If you recall your history, the first wave of computers created the financial conglomerates like ITT. His point was that the next wave of technology would reverse this trend. Boy, talk about reeling in the years.

Anybody remember what the 1st and 2nd and 3rd waves were?

Dr "Wavy Gravey" Tax

 

Bugatti was originally french ... although with a name such as "Ettore" Bugatti, there are no doubts about the italian roots. Production was based at Molsheim castle, in Alsace. Same castle/property than VW bought.
Another italian accent of Bugatti comes the 90s renaissance (EB110 gt/ss and EB112 prototype). It was indeed based north of Bologna and all italian.

I'm not fond of the new Bugatti. The VW influence is too big to be a true enthusiast's car. The absurd figures do match, though.