At the 1999 Geneva motor show, even while Volkswagen’s W12-engined Syncro supercar was still on the cards, Bentley revealed an 8.0-litre W18 supercar of its own and Bugatti the EB218 concept, a saloon version of the EB118.
The intention was for the brand to return to the market position it had enjoyed in its original pre-war form, so “Volkswagen insiders were buoyed that the Mercedes team developing their own limousine, the Maybach, awarded the EB218 ‘benchmark’ status after visiting Bugatti’s stand”, we reported.
This was shortly followed by the 18/3 Chiron and 18/4 Veyron supercar concepts, which were much closer in style to what we know today.
In 2000, though, it emerged that development of the W18 had slowed. “It seems the cost of having both 16- and 18-cylinder engines frightens even Piëch,” we suggested.
Soon after we sampled the 18/4 Veyron on condition of silence, and the big boss told us: “We have the technology under control.” Clearly they didn’t, though, because only a few months later, the supercar evolved into the 16/4 Veyron. Instead of three banks of two three-cylinder engines in line, it had VR8s grafted together into a W16 – much simpler.
Nevertheless, there were fears that the Veyron project had become too expensive, even for Piëch and even after all the other planned Bugatti models had been canned.