Fernando Alonso buys the Bugatti Veyron touted as the most expensive ever made

Fernando Alonso was once again spotted in Monaco at the wheel of a Bugatti, and not just any example. Weeks after touring the principality with an EB110 GT, the two-time Formula 1 world champion appeared with a 2015 Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse pointed out as the most expensive ever produced by the French brand.

According to the Spanish website Motorpasión, the car is chassis 8100, announced by Mechatronik, a German specialist in collector’s vehicles with which the Aston Martin driver has already negotiated other times: from it came his Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR and the Pagani Zonda Diamante Verde. The hypercar uses the W16 8.0 quad-turbo engine with 1.200 hp and 153 kgfm, has a polished aluminum and carbon fiber body and a red interior.

Twenty tons of aluminum and a threat

What separates this Veyron from the others is in the manufacturing process. The first owner demanded that each body panel be made from a single block of aluminum, without any welding, and that the metal reach the bumpers. The caveat was not a detail: in the previous Pur Sang series, the bumpers were made of plastic painted to imitate aluminum. To meet the order, the Molsheim plant consumed about 20 tons of the material.

The customer warned that he would cancel other orders if Bugatti refused the venture. Faced with the risk of losing millions in orders, the automaker gave in. The result was the most expensive Veyron and, according to the Spanish publication, also the most difficult to build in the entire series.

The whim account

There is no confirmation of the
amount paid by Alonso. Estimates at the time of the order indicated that, on the basic price of R$ 13.6 million (2.3 million euros), the first buyer paid another R$ 26.6 million (4.5 million euros) just for customization, something close to R$ 40 million in total at the current price.

This owner got rid of the car with only 750 km on the odometer, the mileage with which the Veyron arrived at Mechatronik. It is also not known whether the Spaniard kept the initials “KAQ” embroidered on the headrests and the fuel tank cap, a reference to Khadem al-Qubaisi, former president of the Swiss bank Falcon and former director of the Emirati sovereign wealth fund IPIC.

Named by the American Justice as the beneficiary of about US$ 472 million (approximately R$ 2.4 billion) embezzled from the Malaysian fund 1MDB, he has been imprisoned in the United Arab Emirates since 2016, and part of his collection of super sports cars was seized in Switzerland.

The purchase adds to a recent sequence that includes the Lancia Delta HF Integrale Martini 6, also seen in Monaco. Produced until 2015, the Grand Sport Vitesse accelerates from 0 to 100 km/h in 2.6 seconds and reaches 410 km/h with the hardtop installed.