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Bugatti once built a 690bhp, one-off EB110 ‘Sport Competizione’

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Bugatti once built a 690bhp, one-off EB110 ‘Sport Competizione’ | Top Gear

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It should have raced at Le Mans in 1996… but things went a bit wrong

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Bugatti once built a 690bhp, one-off EB110 ‘Sport Competizione’

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It should have raced at Le Mans in 1996… but things went a bit wrong

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Bugatti once built a 690bhp, one-off EB110 ‘Sport Competizione’

# data.attributes.metatag[].attributes.content
It should have raced at Le Mans in 1996… but things went a bit wrong

# data.attributes.metatag[].attributes.content
Bugatti once built a 690bhp, one-off EB110 ‘Sport Competizione’

# data.attributes.metatag[].attributes.content
Bugatti once built a 690bhp, one-off EB110 ‘Sport Competizione’

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It should have raced at Le Mans in 1996… but things went a bit wrong

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Bugatti only ever built two official EB110 factory racing cars. One you know about: it’s the one TopGear.com drove a while back, dubbed the EB110 ‘LM’ (for Le Mans). Unsurprisingly, that car entered the Le Mans 24hr race back in 1994.

However, another racing EB110 – built along broadly the same lines as the LM edition – was cobbled together in the space of just six months. That’s the car you see here. This car never entered the Le Mans 24hr race back in 1996.

Welcome then, to the EB110 ‘Sport Competizione’, championed by a chap called Gildo Pallanca-Pastor. Pastor was a racing driver, and so enamoured was he with the Le Mans-spec EB110, he ordered Bugatti to build him the SC in late 1994.

It used the same 3.5-litre V12 and same four turbos, AWD and that lightweight carbon monocoque, only here it was even lighter than the LM, and “incredibly fast”. Bugatti reckons on a power output of 690bhp (700PS), which is… punchy.

Three were scheduled to be built, but only one SC ever made it out of the factory. Pastor’s SC. He started racing it in the BPR GT Series, but the problems came quick and fast. Bugatti tells us around this time – the mid Nineties – “the market for super sports cars collapsed”. Which meant spares became rarer, Bugatti’s financial liabilities accrued, and suppliers withheld parts.

Remember, this was before VW bought Bugatti in-house; back then it was run by Roman Artioli, who had revived Bugatti in 1990 (revealing the EB110 only a year later). With no money to pay suppliers, Artioli closed production in September 1995. The SC was at the factory waiting to be serviced and was provisionally confiscated.

Only, Pastor managed to rescue the SC from Bugatti’s bankruptcy assets. He took it out to Daytona in January of 1996, and then began his preparations for that year’s Le Mans 24hrs. This included a race in Dijon in June.

Pastor’s pace was good enough for 4th place in practice, and in the first race he even made it up to 3rd. But in the next race he crashed, and with no spare parts to repair the SC his mechanics couldn’t get him back out onto the track. Le Mans – so agonisingly close – was off the cards, and the SC was retired.

Miraculously, the car survived and was cared for by Pastor in the following years. He sold it to a ‘Bugatti enthusiast’ a few years later, and now, some 25 years after its last race, Bugatti has brought it back to Dijon for this photoshoot.

What could have been, eh?

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Bugatti only ever built two official EB110 factory racing cars. One you know about: it’s the one TopGear.com drove a while back, dubbed the EB110 ‘LM’ (for Le Mans). Unsurprisingly, that car entered the Le Mans 24hr race back in 1994.

However, another racing EB110 – built along broadly the same lines as the LM edition – was cobbled together in the space of just six months. That’s the car you see here. This car never entered the Le Mans 24hr race back in 1996.

Welcome then, to the EB110 ‘Sport Competizione’, championed by a chap called Gildo Pallanca-Pastor. Pastor was a racing driver, and so enamoured was he with the Le Mans-spec EB110, he ordered Bugatti to build him the SC in late 1994.

It used the same 3.5-litre V12 and same four turbos, AWD and that lightweight carbon monocoque, only here it was even lighter than the LM, and “incredibly fast”. Bugatti reckons on a power output of 690bhp (700PS), which is… punchy.

Three were scheduled to be built, but only one SC ever made it out of the factory. Pastor’s SC. He started racing it in the BPR GT Series, but the problems came quick and fast. Bugatti tells us around this time – the mid Nineties – “the market for super sports cars collapsed”. Which meant spares became rarer, Bugatti’s financial liabilities accrued, and suppliers withheld parts.

Remember, this was before VW bought Bugatti in-house; back then it was run by Roman Artioli, who had revived Bugatti in 1990 (revealing the EB110 only a year later). With no money to pay suppliers, Artioli closed production in September 1995. The SC was at the factory waiting to be serviced and was provisionally confiscated.

Only, Pastor managed to rescue the SC from Bugatti’s bankruptcy assets. He took it out to Daytona in January of 1996, and then began his preparations for that year’s Le Mans 24hrs. This included a race in Dijon in June.

Pastor’s pace was good enough for 4th place in practice, and in the first race he even made it up to 3rd. But in the next race he crashed, and with no spare parts to repair the SC his mechanics couldn’t get him back out onto the track. Le Mans – so agonisingly close – was off the cards, and the SC was retired.

Miraculously, the car survived and was cared for by Pastor in the following years. He sold it to a ‘Bugatti enthusiast’ a few years later, and now, some 25 years after its last race, Bugatti has brought it back to Dijon for this photoshoot.

What could have been, eh?

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It should have raced at Le Mans in 1996… but things went a bit wrong