The EB18/4 'Veyron' - to give it its full concept name - started life in 1999 at the Tokyo Motor Show as a concept car designed by Volkswagen's Hartmut Warkuss. It was never intended to be put into production, but rather as a marketing piece for the Volkswagen Audi Group's (VAG) takeover of the Bugatti name. At that point in time, the French car manufacturer had just been bought from its previous Italian owners by the German Volkswagen Audi Group. The Veyron was the first Bugatti in a long time to not have been designed by ItalDesign.

The marque was put into the watchful hands of the Audi part of the group, which joined the also recently purchased Lamborghini. It was decided to place them under the stewardship of Audi as they are well known for their pioneering use of technologies and designs.

The concept was called the EB18/4. In line with all previous code names for Bugatti models, the numbers came from the engine inside the car, in this case a W18 (3 banks of 6 cylinders) and 4 turbo chargers. The car was shown at various shows around the world, with no modification; a rare thing in a concept, as they preceed major style changes.

However in 2001 Ferdinand Piëch - VAG Chairman - announced at the Geneva Motorshow that interest in the Veyron had been so high that the group would undertake the task of making the car production ready. He also stated that the car would be the fastest, most powerful and most expensive car in history. Now, some would think that the announcement would put people off, and yet VAG stopped taking orders for the car well before the first road going prototype had even hit the road.

There were some changes to the specification of the concept car that were announced as well. The car would not be using the W18 engine, instead it would use a W16 engine, which had already been shown by VAG in their 1999 Bentley Hunaudières concept car. This would be increased in power by adding 4 turbo chargers to it. Top speed was promised to be 250mph (403kph) and the car would have in excess of 1000Bhp.

This announcement, as it turned out, was almost the end of the Veyron project. The story of this car is not its immense performance, it is the engineering that had to go into the mammoth project that created it.