Just because a car goes up for auction, doesn’t mean it will sell. Even if it is something undeniably special.
Just look at the Bugatti EB110 Super Sport prototype that failed to find a new owner by the end of RM Sotheby’s New York Luxury Week sale this past Friday. An adequate bid may have failed to materialize during the auction, but the car remains a noteworthy example of one of the defining supercars of the 1990s.
It’s easy to forget now, but there were a couple of decades last century when Bugatti ceased to exist before being brought back from the dead by Romano Artioli at the end of the 1980s. The Italian businessman would spend less than a decade in charge of the brand before selling it to its current owners, Volkswagen AG, in 1997, but during that time he moved the company to Ferrari’s hometown of Modena and put the EB 110 GT into production.
This supercar, chassis no. ZA9BB02E0PCD39006, is one of just two prototypes, and 30 examples total, that were built of the EB 110 Super Sport. The model’s second iteration maintained the muscular styling of the standard GT but was lighter and more powerful. The example up for bid this past week is finished in Grigio Metallic silver and has a Blu Scurro leather interior that includes factory blue seatbelts and a prototype-specific revised gear selector.
The EB 110 Super Sport may have been a head-turner, but its true selling point was an even more powerful 60-valve, 3.5-liter V-12. The mill produces 603 horses, 53 hp more than the GT. Thanks to the added oomph, and lightweight carbon-fiber body panels, the vehicle can launch from zero to 60 mph in 3.26 seconds and reach a top speed of 220 mph. Because this is a prototype, it also has some features not found on other versions of the supercar, including dual fuel tanks with a single fuel-filler system and a carbon-fiber engine lid cover.
RM Sotheby’s New York auction may be in the rearview, but you can still buy the EB110 Super Sport. No price is mentioned on the prototype’s sale listing, but you can reach out to the auction house for more info. Don’t be surprised if the asking price is around $3 million, though. That was the low estimate heading into the sale and is also how much another example sold for last year.
