News Source: autoblog.com

Let's say you're rich. Filthy rich – you've got cars in garages of homes you can't remember you own, rich.

As the gap between automotive haves and have-nots continues to grow, ultraluxury automakers are exploiting fresh ways to lure the sorts of well-heeled car aficionados who would rather spend their spare time shipping exotic sleds to private tracks than sitting on a beach in the Maldives.

This rarified air presents a daunting challenge to boutique carmakers attempting to distinguish themselves, especially when they're vying for attention amidst voluptuous Paganis, Koenigseggs, and Brabus G63 AMG 6x6s. When the stakes are this high and the competition this fierce, you need a novel approach to peddle your four-wheeled wares – even if you're Bugatti.

Playing The Numbers Game

The Bugatti Veyron EB 16.4 bowed in 2005 as an audacious gesture of ego and hubris, spearheaded by Volkswagen boss Ferdinand Piëch. When tasking his engineers with creating the Veyron, Piëch famously gave numerical marching orders: the car should produce no less than 1,000 horsepower, hit 60 miles per hour in under three seconds and claim a top speed of over 250 mph. Oh, and it had to be capable of transporting two adults to the opera without a trace of vulgarity.

Piëch knew a thing or two about cars when he set those goals in 1999 – he is, after all, the mastermind behind the absolutely bonkers Porsche 917. But even a genius couldn't anticipate the crushing global recession that struck in 2008, stunting the Veyron's sales cycle three years after its debut.

Nine years later, the Veyron's production run of 450 cars is nearly complete. To date, all 300 coupes – 253 Veyrons and 47 Super Sports – have found owners, and of the allotted 150 Grand Sport and Grand Sport Vitesse open top cars, just under 20 remain unsold. "It's a good thing that there are no real alternatives to a Veyron," one Bugatti employee confided, "but you're still battling short attention spans." While it's certainly been a long, drawn out run for the Veyron, the end is finally in sight.

Wanna Buy A Hypercar?

White-glove treatment is par for the course when it comes to hawking six-figure cars. But when the purchase price hovers around the $2.5-million mark, the expectations – and subsequent tactics – become extreme. In order to move its remaining allotment of Veyrons, Bugatti has curated a test-drive program intended to flaunt the Veyron's stratospheric performance capabilities at exotic locales. The so-called Dynamic Driving Experience kicked off several years ago at Circuit Paul Ricard in Southern France, a track presumably picked for its large-scale potential for speed and its proximity to European bajillionaires who were flown in if they didn't happen to hail from the nearby Côte d'Azur. The program later expanded to Formula One circuits in cities including Abu Dhabi and Shanghai, and it launched Stateside in Las Vegas last year. Four dates followed in 2014, among them an event I attended in Palm Desert, CA. More on that later.

As one might expect, the cultural experience can be dramatically different across foreign borders, and potentially harrowing for the professional drivers who place their lives in the hands of would-be buyers who may or may not have pitch-perfect driving skills. "It's been a bit challenging, to be honest, in Asia where people own Lamborghinis and Ferraris but don't have that long of an experience driving super sports cars," one Bugatti official told me. "We had a bit of sweat there," he said, "but we always make sure we use racetracks with runoff."

The Eccentric One-Percent

First-class travel and five-star hotels are de rigueur perks for potential buyers of cars that cost as much as a sweet spread in Beverly Hills, and not surprisingly, the Bugatti program has seen plenty of eccentric behavior from the deep-pocketed players considering these megapurchases. Take, for instance, a certain Eastern European customer who already owned several Veyrons and planned to spend a day at Paul Ricard sampling three new models on Bugatti's dime. According to Bugatti board member Dr. Stefan Brungs, the gentleman was en route to the French track on his private jet with his family when he changed his mind mid-flight and ordered his pilot to head to Monaco instead. "He had a day of fun there, and then headed [back home]," Brungs explains. However irksome it might seem to plan such an elaborate event around a flighty billionaire, the diversion evidently didn't leave hard feelings with Bugatti brass. "He showed up a half a year later and he actually bought several cars," Brungs says. "We have quite extravagant customers."

There's no shortage of absurd behavior at the top of the financial food chain, like guests who demand absolute confidentiality and discretion, only to bring an entourage of photographers who share snapshots on social media. And then there are those who use high-end automotive experiences as backdrops for lavish parties, like the group who visited Bugatti headquarters in Molsheim and organized an intimate concert with Chinese superstar pianist Lang Lang.