Well, Color Me Blue and Call Me Special: Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport Vitesse SE

If there's an auto show with an affluent crowd, you can rest assure that Bugatti will pop up with a special edition version of one of its cars.And by 'special edition', Bugatti usually means a different color combination, which is the case for its newest creation based on the open-top Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport Vitesse that made it to this week's Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance in Monterey.
The one-of-a-kind Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport Vitesse sports a unique Bianco and New Light Blue color scheme inspired by the fabled Type 37A that was built in 1928 and won a multitude of Grand Prix races in its time before it was acquired by Jay Leno.
The upper body of the car including the roof area and air scoops are finished in “Bianco”, while the lower panels (side skirts, front spoiler, radiator grille frame and rear apron with diffusor), the inner surfaces of the wheel rims and the underside of the automatically extending rear spoiler are colored in “New Light Blue.”
The interior of the special edition Bugatti is largely covered in Cognac leather with some hints of New Light Blue.
Power for the Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport Vitesse comes from a 7.9-liter W16 force-fed engine capable of delivering 1,184hp (1,200PS) and 1,500 Nm (1,106 lb-ft) of peak torque allowing the car to reach 100km/h (62mph) in 2.6 seconds and a top speed of 410 km/h (255 mph).
This particular Vitesse on show in California costs €1.74 million or about US$2.15 million at the current exchange rates.

PHOTO GALLERY

Read more »

Posted in: Bugatti,Color,Grand,Special,Sport,Veyron,Vitesse

Fisker Looking to Raise $150 Million To Fund Upcoming Atlantic Model

Amidst all the not-so-great situations currently surrounding Fisker and which range from battery related car fires to the ushering in of a new CEO, another bombshell has just hit home for the California based company. They need $150 million (€121 million), and they need it soon.

Since their inception in 2007, the Fisker brand has raised over $1 billion (€809 million) in private finances to back the Karma project, but now they need an extra cash flow in order to finalize production of their newest Atlantic model in the very near future.

Having been denied a $529 million (€428 million) government loan in the past, Fisker was unable to fund the newly opened Delaware plant where the Atlantic was slated for future production.

The company was then forced to tenuously squeeze-out $400 million in funding from private investors, now, the daunting task of an extra $150 million could prove even more difficult.

In a recent interview with Reuters, Ray Lane, a Fisker managing partner at venture firm Kleiner Perkins Cuafield and Byers, had little details as to how they were going about finding all these extra funds.

“We need money on our balance sheet, and we need money to fund the development of the next car. We’re raising some of that money now, and some later.”

While Fisker has yet to officially release a production date on the Atlantic, rumors say that the project has been pushed back to mid-2014 as the 2015 model year.

By Jeff Perez

PHOTO GALLERY

Read more »

Posted in: Atlantic,Fisker,Looking,Million,Model,Raise,Upcoming