The Unknown French Race Car Behind the Bugatti Veyron

The Bugatti Veyron is famous for its speed records, but the story behind it, featuring the fastest Le Mans Racer, a mad genius, and a penchant for crazy speeds, the Bugatti Veyron's backstory is as crazy as the car itself. We're only a couple of days away from the 2024 24 hours of Le Mans, where top speeds will only reach 350km/h, this highlights just how crazy these cars are when the state of the art modern race machines are no match in terms of top speed.
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[@FailedRacers]

Just to clarify, the ability to subscribe to Failed Racers isn't actually a recently added feature, but it is thrilling!

[@ravishkasilva2851]

Nice

[@RyderFulton]

It’s not? Eh, either way, still subscribed.

[@ericskullbunny6031]

Same thing with the like Button

[@wojtech270]

WAIT WAIT WAITTTT why does the subscribe button shine like a rainbow when you say subscribe?! !?1!?1!?!?1?1? It may afterall a new feature Update: now it doesn’t shine cause im subscribed

[@heathcornbeef]

Hi guys hay that music? In the background was HORRENDOUS

[@piedpiper1172]

“Piech is the man Elon wishes he was because, unlike Elon, Piech is an actual engineer” 🔥🔥🔥

[@Fastvoice]

"was", not "is".

[@sarminder4357]

@@Fastvoice Even his body remains can do a better job at it compared to Elon.

[@firstprototype]

He died 😢

[@Maj-SHIPWRECKED]

Ferdinand Peach: famous rocket engineer ☠️☠️

[@piedpiper1172]

@@Fastvoice Nah, I’m confident Piech’s corpse is a better engineer than Elon’s living mind.

[@yuchungman]

I think you forgot to mention, that the P87/P88 engine is based on the PRV engine that also powers the DeLorean. Imagine that, the engine that struggled to take Doc and Marty past 88mph actually set a speed record...by a French team who treated the Le Mans 24 hours as if it's a Time Attack session

[@jfv65]

Not many people know this! Also: the French did make production sportscars that used PRV turbo engines: MVS Venturi. Look them up, those are cool cars. Another little know fact is that Alfa Romeo(!) used the PRV shortblock to make their racing engine for the Alfa Romeo 155ti corse. What was the reason Alfa didn't use their own famous Busso V6? It was the strong alu alloy block with a 90 degr V-angle that gave plenty of room for a large plenum and intake manifold. The exhaust side was also good because of that V-angle making the exhaust manifolds curve easier towards the underside of the car. Good flow characteristics. The 155ti absolutely dominated DTM salooncar racing with this PRV derived race engine.

[@tjroelsma]

That isn't quite the accomplishment you make it seem to be: the engine only lasted a few km's after setting that speed record and then grenaded. This "accomplishment" has been made by many tuners as well: they take a VW Golf 2,0 liter 4 cylinder and tune it to an insane 840 HP, set a very fast drag run or an insanely high top-speed and then the engine also just grenades.

[@aegean_444]

PRV mean Peugeot - Renault - Volvo This engine was a common work for those 2 French and 1 Swedish car manufacturers It was designed to be a V8, but the oil crisis during the 70s made it to be a truncated V8, aka a V6 It's a well know engine here in France, it was build there by "Française de Mécanique", and almost all V6 French car from the mid 70s to the late 90s have been powered by this engine and his different evolutions (from 125hp in the beginning, to 270hp at the end, (even 400hp for competition car like Venturi)) You can find it in Alpine cars too from this period Maybe it was intended to use it for the Hummer too at the beginning (because Renault was part of the consortium who built the Hummer) Some other car manufacturers have buy it from the PRV alliance like De Lorean or Lancia Alfa Romeo have use it as a modified version for his super toursim competition cars afair It have been used for competition cars, military vehicles, even planes Well, it wasn't a well crafted engine because of the V8 origin But the point was to mutualise his production and make it not too expensive and at least reliable, if not really performing So I guess it sort of works

[@tjroelsma]

@@aegean_444 It's V8 heritage showed in the way it produced its power: the PRV V6 was designed as an old-fashioned, underpowered, almost lazy engine that would keep on going but was never meant to deliver high horsepower numbers. That made it totally unsuitable for racing. Sure, you can slap a turbo or two on it, raise the pressure and it will produce somewhat decent power, but it isn't really eager to rev and things will start falling apart pretty quickly.

[@km6832]

@@jfv65 it used its architecture. Not the actual block

[@MrBrukmann]

"Ferdinand Piëch is who Elon Musk wishes he was .. an actual engineer." Liked and subscribed, my friend. ~Actual Engineer

[@MrBrno]

You absolutely forgot to mention that the Veyron's W16 engine started developing with the VW Nardó W12, then there was also a Bentley W12 until it finally landed on Bugatti.

[@fatmallcop363]

The w12 was 2x vr6 engines slapped together for the phaeton and audi a8

[@Hardistul]

The actual test mule for the Veyron was the 4L W8 BDN Passat B5.5 (basically, half the engine of the Veyron), a car that almost nobody bought, but, as usual, VW did not care. In the day, people were actually wondering what was the point in such a car. Little did they know...

[@joh2434]

Gordon Murray's (designer of the McLaren F1) reaction to the Veyron was that if the F1 had an extra gear it would have hit 250mph, shows just how overengineered the Veyron was.

[@Hustler9g]

Then why didn't anyone change the final drive and do it?

[@joh2434]

@@Hustler9g idk ask Gordon 🤷‍♀️

[@MrGreenAKAguci00]

​@Hustler9g Gordon cares about what a car feels like to drive and he wants it to become a part of the driver with all the flare and fanfare you can get, hence his engines are so damn crazy with revs, and his cars are the lightest they can be, and the central driving position etc. He never gave a fuck about speed statistics, acceleration times etc.

[@stenraa8685]

His engines??​@@MrGreenAKAguci00

[@Skydrag.V60]

Okay 2 things to note so far. The aerodynamic discovery for the 917 came from the fact that the engineers noticed that there weren’t any bugs being splattered on the rear of the car, not a collection of dust. They realized that if the aerodynamics of the car worked, there should be an even distribution of bugs. So, they chopped off the rear and reengineered a few other things, and that’s how we got the 917K. Secondly, Ferdinand Piech wasn’t “fired from Porsche”. He was asked to step down because it was felt that there was a conflict of interest, because he was Ferdinand Porsche’s grandson. “No Porsche or Piëch should be involved in the day-to-day operations of the Porsche company”. So in order to make Porsche seem more fair and unbiased, they transplanted him to Audi. It was purely for the company to avoid being called nepotistic. Not because he was “fired”.

[@NuclearHeadshot]

You've made HUGE improvements in your audio work compared to the Octavia video. I love the effort you've put in.

[@feyt8009]

That's true, but the audio in the Octavia video was already OK. But now it's actually really good 👌

[@arthuralford]

According to someone who should know-Ben Collins, the second Stig on Top Gear-James May is an excellent driver, very precise, which is a plus for driving a car over 400kmh

[@speedhunter7156]

I guess there's a bit of irony of me watching this during the 24 hours of lemans when both Alpines retired due to engine issues

[@kalonji64]

Just loving what you wrote at the end : Nobody copies the French and the French copy nobody... Un grand bonjour du sud-ouest de la France !! Bugatti Veyron and Chiron are Legends, I wish I could drive one... I drove a Lamborghini Gallardo once, now I want more !!

[@emdotrod]

We knew you'll talk about the WM P88 but I have no idea that Veyron will only be here if Piech not being obsessed with the Mulsanne speed record

[@Jayhawker340]

The X-15 and the SR-71 too. The kings of speed on earth and by 2000 they were long gone :-(

[@ondraspendlik9759]

As a side note, Ferdinand Piech must have been even more furious that the car that beat his record had a Peugeot engine. Don't forget he was heavily involved in the Audi quattro project, and it was Peugeot who came to take away their Group B rally crown just a few years before.

[@danoV1c]

Team WM fucked around and found out that you don't fuck around with Ferdinand Piech

[@RandomHeroSpotting]

What a 3am find this was! What a video! 💜 I think no 90s / 00s car kid can deny the hold the Veyron had on them! It became our generations poster car. In awe as we saw Top Gear go gooey over the Veyron. Racing it against James in a plane, getting James to top it out. Then getting James to do it again in it's next variant. Setting fastest lap on the test track. The Veyron was that enigma. The Chiron, I saw two... I wasn't so excited. My first Veyron... teared up. Then seeing 5 lined up in person... damn. That race car, what a story. Excellent work on this. Your information, incredible. Definitely a new fan here 💜

[@Trophy1898]

WM is always confused for a Peugeot thank you for not doing that mistake 😁🙏

[@hellomadet]

If Ferdinand Piech, when creating the Veyron, wanted to make up for the Le Mans speed record lost by Porsche to Peugot, why did he use the French brand Bugatti and not Porshe, which was also owned by VW at the time? Given that Ferdinand Piech was the grandson of Ferdinand Porsche, the choice of Porsche would seem to be obvious one. As for selling the Veyron as a VW car, how in the world were they going to sell a VW for over $2 million when no one was interested in buying a VW Phaeton W12 for less than $100,000? By making the Veyron, the VW Group didn't aim to advertise theier VW models for the regular people, the VW Group aimed to showcase their capabilities in order to attract as many new manufacturers as possible to join them. 🤔

[@FailedRacers]

I'm guessing he didn't use the Porsche brand because either he wasn't allowed to, or he was still annoyed about getting fired from Porsche.

[@hellomadet]

@@FailedRacers To say that Ferdinand Piëch was fired from Porshe is not exactly the truth. Piëch left because of feuds between the Piëch and Porsche families. When Ferdinand died in 1951, he passed on partial ownership of the company to each of his children (daughter Louise, son Ferry). But by the time the third generation (cousins Wolfgang Heinz Porsche and Ferdinand Piëch) started working for the company, things had become unsustainable. Friction between those two families reached a climax in the early 1970s. After an unsuccessful family meeting, one of Louise's sons tried to sell his share of the company to a group of Arab investors. The family quickly raised money to block the deal, but at this point it became clear that this could not continue. In 1972, the family agreed that neither of them would continue working at Porsche.

[@Lena_765_]

Well, Whilst VW technichally owns Porsche, Porsche also owns VW. The VW automotive group own 100% of the Porsche automotive company, yet at the same time, the Porsche investment company own 50.7% of the VW automotive group. This could be a reason as well.

[@EllDub]

You answered your own question, VW can't sell a car for 2 mil and something like the Veyron under a Porsche badge would've just pissed off the fan base. Why no gt3, why no flat 6/8, why no full rear engine, ad infitium.

[@hellomadet]

@@EllDub I see you didn't notice that it was a rhetorical question....

[@BarHanSolo]

3:57 that's Helmut Marko!

[@bicyclist2]

Very cool! Glad to see the Top Gear clip. Thank you.

[@edwardfletcher7790]

"The Peugeot engine wasn't working" The most common sentence ever said about Peugeot..... LMAO 🤣

[@Maj-SHIPWRECKED]

Everyone here forgetting the Dauer 962c had a recorded top speed of 251 mph in 1998. So in a bizarre twist Ferdinand Pietchs top speed record was actually held a by “Porsche” (or at least the once removed cousin of one) the whole time.

[@SHE3PY_]

really underated channel omg

[@toucan221]

Excellent video, I Knew there was a story behind the Bugatti Veyron somewhere, and you found it thanks

[@TheElDoctoro24]

I am simply in shock and disbelief a French designed and manufactured car would ever have an electrical issue 😅

[@cobaltlukather9045]

man, imagine if Chrysler America gave a damn about setting top speeds at Le Mans 35+ years ago and showed up with a HEMI-powered Pro Mod drag car detuned for crap french fuel. could have had a Dodge Aspen do 500kph.

[@thestarlightalchemist7333]

If any country in the world had the right to be crowned the king of speed, it'd be France. They co-own the fastest airliner with the British, they've co-owned three of the fastest production cars ever made, first with the Italians and then with the Germans, and they've had the rail speed record all to themselves since the 50s, something I tend to focus on a lot, since trains are my favourite thing ever. Greetings from western Canada!

[@FailedRacers]

And the world's most important and prestigious race, the 24 hours of Le Mans is happening right now in France, which is also where motorsport was invented.

[@IIISPQRIII.]

@@FailedRacers yep France and automobil make one

[@CallumBlyth]

Babe wake up new Failed Racers video

[@alaricbragg7843]

Thank you for this video! I have been most eager to see this. Amazing link between the WM and the Bugatti! Lol may you please consider some more stories on whacky Peugeots? Examples include the 1994 McLaren-Peugeot BBQ, the 2000 Prost-Peugeot, the Group B 504 Rally Pickup, Peugeot's many, many failed Wiley Coyote attempts to win a BTCC title, let alone a race! And my favourite, the - actually awesome - RWD Peugeot 305 V6 Rally car prototype (Should have so gone into production, it would have been the 1 Series BMW of the 1980s!). 🙂

[@IIISPQRIII.]

W video man, love from France 🇫🇷 yep In France we love speed

[@kledomuc1713]

Great video! Thanks man. You’d need to do a video with Cerbera Speed12, I’d love to see it.

[@emileboucher-cloutier3529]

What a great vid!! The quality is always 100% better in each release! Keep it up xx

[@halitozkaya]

The fact that this video has 781 views blows my mind. This is by far the best veyron video I have ever watched!!! Keep up dude you will make it in no time :)

[@goodwood-rc4nx]

let us not forget the original Mini and DB5 both sold at a loss according to reports

[@0bscura]

Enjoied this video way more than I thought I would. Well done! Highly recommended.

[@piuthemagicman]

Your best video yet! Great storytelling 👌

[@gafrers]

Quality video once again. Always loved the Veyron and all it represented. No Vaporware like these past years

[@craig3916]

one way or another it seems the porsche family and freinds intend to dominate everything european and french

[@etoineschrdlu9382]

Whenever they run that Nissan Altima commercial where the TV blows up and the guy confidently states, "Not on my watch!" and then goes to fetch a new TV, I always wonder how in the world he shoe horned a big flat screen into the back of an Altima?

[@FailedRacers]

The Altima is quite a big car actually, you'd easily get a TV into it

[@Tylexy_]

9:40 duck 🦆

[@leendertvannielen1373]

Just to clarify the 917 LH was faster than the 917 K though it never won at Le Mans due to poor reliability, characterising the Porsche 917. Downforce mainly became a more important factor at Le Mans due to the introduction of the Porsche curves in 1972.

[@JS-el3zm]

Revenge is best served cold.

[@RAHellemans]

You are a bit light on the origin of the WM race cars. Gérard Welter founded together with Michel Meunier, WM racing team. G Welter was better known as the chief designer at Peugeot. He designed the 205 and also the 407. His position also explains the long list of sponsors featured on the car. The record attempt waited for the morning cool air and most of the cooling holes were blanked off to gain aerodynamic advantage resulting in them over shooting their objective.

[@MostlyPennyCat]

Super conducting maglev shinkasen: "am I nothing to you? 😢"

[@ernestogasulla7763]

The 395 km/h mark by the 917 at Le Mans is an urban legend. It was never recorded, and even Porsche sites report the car top speed to be 386 km/h.

[@Shenron67]

The Bugatti Veyron is exactly what Ettore was aiming for: perfection.

[@millennialchicken]

France does go kinda hard ngl

[@thedrivechannel83]

Very well done!

[@justcarcrazy]

18:41 the Bugatti EB218 sedan was a beautiful and elegant machine, not "hideous" as you describe it.

[@mikko3470]

Back in time I was into everything sporty (like everything) cause I was very much into the speed.

[@mikosoft]

20:27 what a roast :D

[@deabreu.tattoo]

ahm... b '88, ground effect floors were not only old, but even banned in F1. also, they had blow diffusers in F1 in the mid-'80s too

[@avmelidor]

Illuminating

[@IIISPQRIII.]

I think you should do a video about bugatti one day, it would be cool !

[@laserbeam1620]

What a good gd video!!!!

[@cyhan1393]

7:43 Porsche lobotomy on screen

[@WynnofThule]

10:40 Actually it did start in F1 in the 1980s, with the early Renault turbo cars.

[@FailedRacers]

Interesting

[@tomast9034]

the veyron was the first car to beat the mclaren f1 in 13 years being the fastet production car.

[@jonasekstrand9941]

It was not, Koenigsegg beat the F1 before Bugatti. And they have kept beating Bugatti ever since….

[@janih777]

Good video

[@Aanthanur]

the Elon bashing gave you a like :D

[@Marc-zi4vg]

soo in an Alternate universe, where the P88 broke down and never have done the top speed record, we would see a eaxctly 400 kph Bugatti veyron instead via the Sauber C9 (that or he will make his wondercar with Porsche against the chagrin of his clan to make it an Insult to Injury against Mercedes, which is also based on Stuttgart)

[@sp5141]

P I E C H W A V E

[@Arthurzeiro]

Nobody's talking about the usage of something heavily based on brazilian funk music at 2:30, so let me do It, great choice mate.

[@Rose_Butterfly98]

Ah so that's why I can't put much downforce on the 917LH in FH5. I always wondered why it was in single digits.

[@WillFuI]

How it’s Bugatti versus koenigsegg a beautiful fight with beautiful cars

[@caledonianrailway1233]

Yes tgv is fast

[@caledonianrailway1233]

And buggati had several railway connections

[@caledonianrailway1233]

Ettorie buggati knew sir Nigel gresley who made the fastest steam engine ever

[@pycoza9013]

yo i advise not to use brazil funk music and instead go for 2000s to 2010 music fitting the cars vibe and use like sound effects to make the reveals more dramatic for better interest

[@FailedRacers]

I would do that, but NCS is pretty reliable at not giving me copyright claims, there's a lot of fake "no copyright" music around, so I'm avoiding that by using recent NCS stuff.

[@jamesspry3294]

Step away from the kaleidoscope button, RIGHT NOW!!

[@FailedRacers]

Whenever the kaleidoscope stuff shows up, there's a bit of footage I couldn't use, so I just put that to fill the gap

[@firstprototype]

Mulsanne straight should be open in full again. Because this was modified, France 🇫🇷,LeMans and FIA lost billions and still does until will be available in full again. 😮

[@fyjypko4207]

22:20 please never disrespect the enzo like that ever again i have a 20 year old poster of it framed in my wall

[@FailedRacers]

No disrespect to the Enzo, but that fact about the clutch is true. It was a cool car, but so fragile too.

[@villevaittinen7045]

Yaayyy a new vidd🎉🎉🎉

[@miketownsend8247]

The p88 is icon in my opinion

[@dortkommendieclowns1474]

WM 88 😍 Are they using Peugeot 504 coupe headlights?

[@FailedRacers]

Probably not, maybe inspired by the 504 coupe, but it'd be bespoke for aero

[@obakengpilane7875]

There are people out there who still think the Veyron is the fastest car in the world 😂

[@MagnumX2000]

Whats the song at 3:53?

[@mr.scholz6172]

you helped me get off shorts!@!!!!!@!!@!111!@!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@1elevenchannel]

Song name?

[@jtrill2]

The Bugatti Veyron is based off of the 1999 Bentley Hunaudières and the Audi Rosemeyer. Please update your video.

[@MickeyMishra]

Viva la France!

[@cflynn3684]

The techno music gives me huge retro Tom’s Hardware vibes

[@wsgletschill]

damn

[@firstprototype]

Piech did it because of Peugeot, speed at LeMans

[@h-j.k.8971]

Learnt one thing: do not give an austrian power!

[@Sassenhaim]

did he have a try at sketching and failed horribly too?

[@krishorst4734]

I really dont think Elon Musk wishes he was anyone else but Elon Musk!

[@iks1536]

Bugatti was, is and forever will be ITALIAN company and the fact it is in France now due to post WW1 era border changes won't fucking change that. Bugatti never was a french company and never will be.

[@peekaboo1575]

"Nobody copies the French, and the French copy nobody." Well, the Veyron & Chiron are basically faster, more expensive EB110s. But whatever.

[@km6832]

"Lost money on every car sold" yea out the show room but they definitely made money on the servicing

[@jackbower8671]

Like every single manufactured car

[@km6832]

@@jackbower8671 want a cookie?

[@Thumper68]

There’s no possible way that those cars cost 2+ million to make. There’s just not that much material cost there not even close. They are trying to say the R&D cost is part of the loss on every car making it completely untrue. The actual cost to build each car is far less then they sell them for.

[@Lena_765_]

It´s probably less pure material cost and more the manufacturing cost for these highly specialised parts (50k per tire). But the r&d is probably factured into the "manufacturing price" at a lesser percentage.

[@billdeburgh]

Tell that to the american defense industry. Hardly anything they have to offer sells for less than 2 million.

[@denisk886]

concord, tgv, veyron.... what happened to you france?

[@insansiregar6158]

But Bugatti is an Italian surname

[@don_k20]

But Ettore Bugatti hated his Italian heritage so much that he called it a "mistake"

[@IIISPQRIII.]

​@@don_k20yes, then he became french and did everything for france (racing, etc) .

[@maseadalmohannadi2203]

@@IIISPQRIII.what did he did for france. ? 🤣 and italian have the legend the world champion enzo ferrari the fastest engine in the world ferrari engine 100% 🇮🇹 , do u think italy care about a ur bugatti fake german france audi 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡

[@maseadalmohannadi2203]

@@don_k20like italian care about him 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 they have the fastest engine ever made by humen and its 100%🇮🇹 ferrari 🐐 , forza ferrari rip enzo ferrari legend , myth , champion

[@FailedRacers]

Why are you typing like that?

[@kenp9073]

Please remove the music.....smh

[@nowind37]

nowadays bugatti owned by rimac

[@IIISPQRIII.]

but that is still a French brand like tata got jaguar but it's not indian

[@wololo10]

Humanity has peaked and we are declining fast

[@coletrickle-km7cl]

No hype since then? you haven't been to Bonneville salt flats have you?

[@junkerup]

U gotta stop regurgitating the same clips over and over

[@johnt.848]

Nah, the Veyron is VW based, everyone knows that.

[@EllDub]

Yeah, he says it in the video too, did you watch all of it?? 😂

[@SmokingJoeCH]

would be much better without that silly music….

[@FailedRacers]

You'd think, but in 2024?I've gotta conpete with things like TikTok and their 5 second videos for retention, so I basically need more stuff going on to keep retention (and therefore views) higher

[@Fastvoice]

@@FailedRacers TikTok is a different platform with different users.

[@Sassenhaim]

Like you said the French will do anything, lie about starting a war. And which war do I mean the great one or that of speed . On that bombshell 😂😂😂 Goodnight ❤

[@starspaniard7556]

And what is Vector Avtec WX3????? What is Corvette Kallaway Sledgehammer??????? These cars have allready run over the 400 kmh barrier that you say years before Bugatti. And not with a car Impossible to buy for most people of the Planet and probably with a car that would need very often motor service or repairs with crazy costs!!!!! You dont know Vector Avtec WX3? You dont know Ferrari Lotec Colani?!!!!! You dont know Chevrolet Corvette Kallaway Sledgehammer?!!!!! Go to learn about these cars first and then come to make such Videos

[@Mad_Martigen]

Unpopular comment: The Bugatti Veyron is an ugly car. Fast, yes but ugly.