By Jeff Glucker
Being the frontman for Disaster Area is a well-paying gig. It pays enough to buy entire star systems. Or, we assume, the most expensive new car ever built… at least here on Earth. This is the Bugatti La Voiture Noire. It costs $12.5 million before any taxes have been applied, and you can’t buy it even if you could afford to do so. That’s because Bugatti are building just one. And we’re going to pretend that it’s been prepared for Hotblack Desiato.
If Bugatti can build such a ridiculous machine, then we can apply delightfully insane stories around the car.
The goal of The Black Car is to exist as a modern link to Bugatti’s famed Type 57 SC Atlantic. Though we’ve come a far cry from the 200-horsepower supercharged straight eights of yore. This zarking frood you see above is powered by an 8.0-liter W16 engine that eats exhaust gas through a quartet of turbochargers. We’re dealing with around 1,500 horsepower on this re-bodied Chiron.
It’s an insane exercise in excess. But that works just fine for Bugatti. If they have a customer eager to part with literal truck loads of cash, why not build a one-off homage to an iconic bit of Bugatti history. And that bit of history is worth even more than its modern familial link. A Bugatti Type 57 SC is worth north of $40 million.
But all of this is a pittance for “the unnamed buyer” of the Bugatti black car. The automaker claims the person is a “Bugatti enthusiast”. We didn’t know that Hotblack has penchant for French hyper cars, but who else would commission such a wicked thing. Hopefully the exhaust has been modified to fit in with the lead of the loudest rock band ever to exist.
Bugatti should’ve taken the car a step further and simply named it the Hotblack. And then some might consider spending a year dead for tax purposes just to afford it.
“If Bugatti can build such a ridiculous machine, then we can apply delightfully insane stories around the car.”
Why not, that’s basically what Bugatti has done. Gluing a bit of metal (presumably) to the car and putting on 6 exhaust pipes is not a very good homage to the Atlantic IMO.
He’s a hooping frood who really knows where his towel is.
You have enough to buy that car, maybe you’ll want to spend a year dead for tax reasons, too.
You have enough to buy that car, maybe you’ll want to spend a year dead for tax reasons, too.
How fast is it? It’s Slartibartfast.
It really ought to be coated* in Vantablack, the blackest of all black.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vantablack
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/989609b688dda03fd5220448cf026abd9b7ab4d2f40b6fa4a5c286dd675a3ad4.png
*Not ‘painted’. Vantablack can only be grown on the surface at 400 degrees. It’s that black.
Please keep blackface pictures off the site or Jeff will be forced to step down as blooger in chief.
Oh, but goldface is okay, right? Check your own bias! (-ply tires. For dry rot.)
The one problem with making it for Hotblack Desiato is it has to be crashed into a sun.
I think most around here would be okay with that…
“If Bugatti can build such a ridiculous machine, then we can apply delightfully insane stories around the car.”
Why not, that’s basically what Bugatti has done. Gluing a bit of metal (presumably) to the car and putting on 6 exhaust pipes is not a very good homage to the Atlantic IMO.
He’s a hooping frood who really knows where his towel is.
From DouglasAdams.com: “I came across the name Hotlblack Desiato when I was driving along Upper Street in Islington, and there it was on a house For Sale sign. It was the name of a new (real) estate agent . I thought it was the most wonderful name I’d ever seen, and wished I could come up with names as good as that.
I couldn’t get the name out of my mind, and when I was trying to figure out the name for the rockstar who was spending a year dead for tax reasons, every name I thought of was not nearly as good as Hotblack Desiato. So in the end I gave up and phoned the agency and spoke – as it happened – to Geoff Hotblack. I asked him if I could use their name and he was, as you might imagine, quite surprised but said I certainly could.
And so I did. I spoke to Geoff quite often after that, in his capacity as an estate agent. And one day he told me that they had had quite a few calls from people saying hadn’t they got a bit of a nerve naming their agency after a character in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?
So, yes, it certainly does work both ways”
Also, the firm remains in business to this day
https://hotblackdesiato.co.uk/
FORD PREFECT: “Batshitbox, would it surprise you if I told you that I’m not really from Guildford, but from a small planet orbiting Betelgeuse instead?”
BATSHITBOX: “No, Ford, it wouldn’t surprise me one fucking bit. Not now that I know Hotblack Desiato is from fucking Islington.”:
Maybe a bit off-topic, but could somebody please explain me the “optical overhang” of the wheel spokes? Looks only, or function, too?
It looks to be sort of painted onto the tire sidewall. Nothing I’d usually associate with prestige, style or sense even.
https://i.ibb.co/KK0br6c/20190306-143220.jpg
Word on the street is that the car was built for 82 year old Ferdinand Piech.