A gorgeous Bugatti Centodieci painted silver recently rolled out of the car manufacturer’s French manufacturing facility but before it did, it needed to receive a final sign-off by Bugatti test driver Steve Jenny.
Jenny is Bugatti’s most senior test driver and has driven more than 350,000 km (~217,000 miles) in the Veyron, Chiron, Divo, Centodieci, and the one-off La Voiture Noire. He is tasked with ensuring that each and every vehicle drives like a Bugatti should, all while being free from imperfections. He has driven roughly 800 Bugatti vehicles at his time with the carmaker.
For this particular Centodieci, finished in EB110 Argent paint, Jenny took it on his usual route around the home of Bugatti in Molsheim which takes around 5 hours and covers at least 300 km (186 miles). The route includes twisting mountain roads, the autoroute, and low-speed crawls through small Alsatian villages, all designed to replicate the conditions that a customer may encounter.
Read: Latest Bugatti Centodieci Finished In Silver Perfectly Matches This EB110 Supersport
It is also the job of Bugatti’s test driver to detect even the slightest of discrepancies between the 10 Centodieci models heading to production. Beyond being tested on the street, the Centodieci is put through various performance tests at a local airport runway. These include high speed slaloms, emergency lane changes, and emergency braking procedures. Jenny also analyses the material finishes and bespoke touches applied to each Centodieci.
Each Bugatti must past an exhaustive list of criteria before it can move to the next stage where the gearbox filter is replaced, the final set of wheels is fitted, any imperfections are corrected, and the car is taken on one final 50 km (31-mile) test drive.
“There is no compromise in the creation of a Bugatti, especially one as rare and unique as the Centodieci,” Jenny described. “Since only 10 will ever be created, the opportunities to drive such an extraordinary car are so rare that we must redouble our attention during the final drive. Ensuring consistent perfection across each Centodieci, and every Bugatti, is extremely important.”
