Desirable Bugattis

Volkswagen reportedly lost around $6 million on every single Veyron it sold — across all 450 built. It made the car anyway, purely to prove it could be done.

Excess as an Engineering Discipline

Few manufacturers treat "more" as quite so literal an engineering brief. When the Veyron launched in 2005 with 1,001 horsepower and a top speed that eventually reached 253mph, the cost of developing and building it so dramatically outstripped the sale price that analysts estimated Volkswagen lost several million dollars on every single example, a genuinely deliberate loss-leader built purely to demonstrate what the parent company's engineering could achieve. That same relentless, records-first mentality runs all the way back to the marque's earliest days — the Type 35, raced from 1924, went on to win more than 2,000 races and claimed the inaugural Grand Prix World Championship in 1926, a competition record that remains one of the most dominant in motorsport history.

The current Tourbillon carries that same uncompromising ambition forward with a naturally aspirated V16, a genuinely unusual choice in an era when almost every rival has turned to turbocharging or electrification instead. Below are the models we've covered so far.

• Bugatti Tourbillon Overview — Modern Icon
• Bugatti Veyron Overview — Modern Icon
• Bugatti Type 35 Overview — Classic Icon