“The Bugatti EB110 is 100 percent, unadulterated, Tony-award–winning theatre.” So begins Jason Cammisa’s lastest Revelations video on the 1990s tech-laden Italo-French supercar that seemed to come and go before most of us even realised it had been here.
Company founder Ettore Bugatti was a nit-picky perfectionist whose singular drive was reflected in the craftsmanship of the prewar machinery that bore his name. And though the EB110 also bore his name, and although it, too, was an exceptional piece of machinery—“a dynamic masterpiece, even”—it was far from perfect. Its gestation and birth, however, were, uh, magnificent.
Cammisa walks viewers through Bugatti’s convoluted resurgence as a manufacturer (well, it’s first resurgence, anyway) and highlights the melodrama and ridiculous details that went into that revival. Then there’s the car itself.
To be sure, despite its near-4000-pound kerb weight, the EB110 was a technological tour de force, with its bleeding-edge carbon-fibre tub, its all-wheel-drive, and its quad-turbocharged, 60-valve 3.5-litre V12 built entirely in-house. In its day, the 603-hp EB110 Supersport was the quickest and fastest car in the world, although that “day” only lasted a few months before a certain McLaren entered the supercar fray.
Stupidly exuberant? Absolutely. Overlooked in the context of its peers? Probably. You can judge for yourself, and get some good chuckles in the process, with Cammisa as your guide.
