How To Buy A Badass Bugatti Veyron Supercar for Just $82,000
We’re about to save you a couple million bucks, NBD.
The Bugatti Veyron is a multi-million dollar, 1,200-horsepower, 250-mph missile only available to the chosen few, like noted Bugatti collector Floyd Mayweather. But Orlando classic car dealer Just Toys Classic Cars has a solution for mere mortals: an $82,000 Veyron replica that is a dead-on knock-off of the otherworldly supercar.
Yes, it has as much authentic lineage as that famous princess’s castle across town at Disney World, but just as with that one, it is nevertheless an impressive facade.
This faux Veyron is built on a 2001 Mercury Cougar, a mostly-forgotten front-wheel drive V6 compact coupe, so its mechanicals are a far cry from the Veyron’s mighty mid-mounted, rear-drive, quad-turbocharged W16 masterpiece.
Nevertheless, the Cougar is built on a wheelbase that is within a fraction of an inch of the Veyron, and wider bodywork and wheels easily bridge the 10-inch difference in the two cars’ widths, so the clone’s proportions are spot-on.
This is typically where replica cars fall down, so by starting with the correct proportions, the car’s ultimate success as a body double is much improved.
The car has correct Bugatti badging and detailing at every turn to further support the illusion of a seven-figure pedigree (the car can run anywhere from $1.7 million to the $3.5 million that Mayweather spent on his Grand Sport Vitesse). For example, though this car’s engine resides beneath its hood, at the rear it has a facade worthy of the Wizard of Oz, pretending to show that monster V-12.
Indeed, compare the replica’s “engine” (above) with the real Bugatti’s engine (below).
The 2001 Cougar had a smallish 2.5-liter V6 engine, so that was replaced for this car with a more powerful 3.0-liter V6 lifted from a Mercury Sable and fitted with an eye-catching red high-performance SVO intake manifold and rumbly low-restriction exhaust that contributes to the replica’s convincing impersonation.
At $82,000, you could buy a fleet of these knock-offs bigger than Mayweather’s for less than the cost of a single used, authentic Veyron.
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