It’s tricky to find a superior replacement for something that carries the tag of the ‘world’s most expensive car’! Following a slow launch, the ultra-luxury carmaker, Bugatti, is quickly ramping up production. Though they definitely will roll out 70 of its $1.4 million V-16-powered Veyrons next year, compared to just 50 in 2006. The company will quickly wrap up production of the Veyron, has stated a goal of building no more than 300 copies overall. The question is what will come next? There will be another car, despite rumors and reports that Bugatti might be a one-trick pony, insisted an official.
In the near-term, Bugatti is likely to produce a small number of high-priced supercars, variants based on the Veyron, but longer-term, the Volkswagen subsidiary may turn in a very different direction. One possibility would be to go into a much lower-priced market segment. That could increase potential sales significantly, but Bugatti can’t go too low, or it might wind up competing with the roughly $150,000 GT, built by VW sibling division, Bentley. There is concern within the VW group about how a vehicle priced below $300,000 might impact Bentley and Lamborghini, but cars above the price point are hard to make at a profit. VW shareholder Porsche is said to be pressuring Volkswagen to keep Bugatti out of its territory. It’s unclear how or when VW, Porsche, and Bugatti will come to a consensus…..but hopefully a decision on the successor of Veyron will be made by mid-2007.
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