The Veyron entered into uncharted territory with its mind-blowing performance and after 10 years of production, it was retired, only to be replaced by an even meaner machine, the Chiron.

During its assembly, Bugatti made sure that it remained highly competitive and appealing by constantly upgrading it to the Grand Sport, Super Sport and Grand Sport Vitesse guises, adding more power each time to the W16 powerhouse, which came to life by bolting two W8 engines together.

When the engineers ran it at full throttle at the Volkswagen’s facility in Salzgitter, Germany, back in 2001, it almost burned the roof of the building, as the exhaust system was completely overwhelmed due to excessive heat produced. Years of fine-tuning later, the first example came out, capable of sprinting from rest to 100 km/h (62 mph) in just 2.5 seconds, a staggering performance even by today’s standards, but it didn’t truly turn everyone’s heads until it was driven up to a Guinness World Record-approved top speed of 407.47 km/h (253.19 mph).

Three years after it entered production, the open-top version, dubbed Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport, first seen the light of day at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, in 2008, and it was produced in 150 examples, which made it twice as rare as the coupe. It was capable of reaching an electronically limited top speed of 354 km/h (220 mph) with the roof down and it quickly gained the attention it needed to sell in no time.

Pictured here is the 54th car manufactured, used by Bugatti for promotional purposes and shown at various events throughout the United States, where it captured the attention of its current owner, four years ago. After arranging the purchase, the hypercar, whose odometer was already indicating 980 miles (1,577 km), was flown back to France for a complete service, prior to its delivery. Having it in his possession, the lucky owner has mostly kept it away from the road, and after the last inspection, made by Bugatti in Los Angeles, it has 1,100 miles (1,770 km) on the clock. Purchasing it would require a trip to Monterey, California, at RMSotheby’s auction, which will kick off on August 19.

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