Twenty years ago, the Bugatti Veyron seemed like science fiction . As a sheltered kid with little exposure to popular culture, I still remember reading about this mythical new category of performance car when it exploded onto the scene in 2005—a price tag over one million Euros with 1,000 horsepower out of the eventual quad-turbo W16 engine that replaced the V18, and a top speed higher than 400 kilometers an hour. The Veyron didn’t just move the performance goalposts when it arrived in 2005—it helped create the modern hypercar as we know it. Much of the Veyron’s popularity today probably stems from millennial car kids staring up at bedroom posters daydreaming—myself included.

The craze for 21st-century Bugattis reached an inflection point in 2024, when a 2010 Veyron Grand Sport Sang Bleu sold for $3.085 million at an RM Sotheby’s auction. Then, more recently in fall of 2026, a Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse Wimille reached a stunning new record of $5.44 million.…