From its earliest stages in concept car form to the final Veyron storming out of Bugatti’s Molsheim atelier in 2015, the French marque’s flagship hypercar has never failed to live up to its billing.

The furore dates back as early as May 1998, when Volkswagen AG bought the rights to the historic Bugatti name, sparking a whirlwind of anticipation and speculation among the world’s motoring press.

The concept that came closest to the eventual production car was shown in Tokyo in 1999, with its space-age design and promising otherworldly performance that seemed impossible for the time—to an extent, the same is still true even today.

Bugatti made 252 examples of the standard “16.4” coupé, but began refining the formula part-way through its lifecycle.

First shown to the public at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in 2008—three years after the Veyron entered production—the new open-topped Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport upped the ante on the world’s most incredible hypercar.

Only 150 exampl...