Early Veyron Concept 'Discovered'

Pictures show how wrong things could have gone...

By SimonSaid / Thursday, 7 January 2010 / Loading comments

This bizarre concept car is a very early full-scale model of what the Bugatti Veyron could have looked like. The pictures seen here were printed over the summer in Italian car mag

Quattroruote

, but as our subscription recently expired (ahem), we've just spotted them now as they do the rounds on the internet.

The story goes that back in 1999 Walter de'Silva, then working as design boss for Seat, was commissioned by VW's then head of design, Hartmut Warkuss, to submit a proposal for a new Bugatti to VW group boss Ferdinand Piech. The mock-up you see here was apparently rejected, as was an alternative proposal from Italian style house Giugiaro.

Thankfully, the final production version looked a lot better than this strange early concept, and a lot less like a 'car eating another car'. The production Veyron was eventually credited to Hartmut Warkuss and Slovak designer Jozef Kaban (of Seat Lupo/Seat Arosa 'fame'). It's clear, however, from these images that de'Silva's initial design had at least some influence on the production car's final form.

Still, there's no need to pity the Italian-born de'Silva too much, as two years into the Veyron's life de'Silva would take Hartmut Warkuss's job as head of design for the entire VW Group. So he's not doing too badly for himself...