If you can't buy a Bugatti, you build your own

What if I told you the image you're seeing here is nog of a Bugatti. Yes, it has the same lighting, the same 'horse shoe' grille and the same arch over the side that is a signature Bugatti-design. The main difference is that a real modern Bugatti has 16 cilinders. The one seen here has none. It has motors from vacuum cleaners. No joke, because this car is going to be made by Chinese vacuumcleaner maker Dreame.

According to Chinese auto media Dongchedi, Dreame Technology founder and CEO Yu Hao has posted several images of his Dreame car (see what I did there?) on one of his social media accounts, claiming that he only took inspiration from Bugatti.

To be fair, we should've seen this one coming earlier. I mean, the companies CEO dropped not just hints, but said the 'Bugatti' name when he spoke about his plans to build a hypercar. I just didn't think it would be this much of a blatant copy. Until you come to the inside. That is where the designers found out there was no more budget left, so they took a very generic and very Chinese EV-interior and just put it there.

If Dreame ever gets this hypercar to production, it'll probably only ever make one of this four doored fake Bugatti's. But even then, it simply doesn't make sense for a robot vacuum company to build a car, as has been proven bij Dyson. But seeing Hao shouting out his plans for a hypercar, makes me think the company is trying to build this car because either Hao can't afford to buy his own Bugatti, Bugatti won't let him, or he really, really wants his 'Bugatti' to have four doors. So he's probably building his own under the guise of a marketing and development tool for his company.

Besides Hao, there is another rich man that took matters into his own hands because he wanted a special car. He took a totally different route to get one. He's letting his bank account do all the talking.

Today I saw the result of that opposite approach in real life. I went to the Wheels event in the Netherlands (thanks Mark) to go and check out Mister Perridon's newest acquisition: the Bugatti Brouillard. A one-off car the French car maker built in collaboration with and especially for one of the richest men of The Netherlands.

I'd like to think Perridon called Matte Rimac on his personal phone, pitched him the idea to built him his very own Bugatti, and named a price Rimac just couldn't refuse. How much would that be, you ask? You'll probably have to think in the range of 30, 40 or maybe even 50 million euro's. It can't be cheaper than the one-off Bugatti La Voiture Noire, which was priced at just a little under 17 million euro.

Let's be honest, If you call Bugatti with the request to have them build a one-off for you, you probably wouldn't want that car to be the second most expensive Bugatti ever made, right? I wouldn't care, because I would want my very own perfect Bugatti, regardless of price. But I'm also not filthy rich, so I'm probably not the right guy to answer this question. Come to think of it, would I even call Bugatti? Yeah, I probably would.

But I would be perfectly content with another car I saw at Wheels: the Aston Martin Zagato Shooting Brake. In my opinion pretty much the perfect car. Aston Martin is still one of those brands that is just an 'it' car for me. The design tickles me in just the right spots and the sounds the British cars produce... Perfection. Now sprinkle a bit of Zagato design on top. Not to much, but mostly to make it a shooting brake. And voila, a car you can travel with, without kids (because no back seat), but with enough room for all the luggage you'd even need.

That color though... I know there's one 28 of these cars in the world, so let's just say that there is still hope for the other 27.

In other news:

The Volkswagen ID.Polo, that will be revealed next year as the next cheap EV from the German brand, is getting surprisingly expensive and modern technology. I'm getting a bit nerdy here, but I think it's really awesome VW decided to op for SiC (Silicum Carbide) semiconductors for their smaller electric cars too. In short: this means a great increase in efficiency of the electrical systems in the car because of fewer conversion losses. That means faster charging, better range and less weight. Things we like, not only in smaller cars.

For all the people that believed the rumors about Mercedes-Benz using BMW-engines and asked me about it: I told you so.

I've been talking about never having to charge you Porsche again, or never having to open op you charge flap again, but it seems that in the near future we don't have to ever charge again, because EV's will charge themselves. That is according to a guy called Thane C. Heins, who calls himself the 'World’s Leading Electromagnetics Expert'. He patented the 'EV Regenerative Acceleration' technology, which charges a car while it's accelerating. Different from regular regenerative charging, which usually only occurs during braking. Heins claims he has eliminated friction and therefore pretty much invented the perpetual motion machine. I'll believe it when I see it...