Bugatti’s Ladybug Paint Job

Bugatti customers are well-known for their crazy requests and the company is no stranger to taking on a challenge. That said, this latest project was so difficult to execute that the French company nearly threw in the towel. But they persevered and the result is the incredibly striking Divo Lady Bug.

One of 40 Divos to be built, this car was commissioned by a customer who wanted the paint job to resemble a ladybug. That’s a bit easier on paper than it sounds, but as you can imagine, this was no small task. The car is painted in a dual-tone of deep red and black and features a diamond pattern on parts of the bodywork that are unique to this car. It’s also adorned with matching red wheels and has a few special touches that make it one-of-a-kind.

The first step was to design the pattern. Then Bugatti’s CAD modelers worked out how to apply it to the vehicle’s three-dimensional bodywork. But that’s where things got tricky because two-dimensional CAD graphics just didn’t translate on the real thing. The team had to tweak the roughly 1,600 diamond shapes until they fit perfectly. It took a lot of time and countless hours of rehearsal on two test cars.

After a year-and-a-half, the team finally had a pattern that worked. Then they had to figure out how to apply it to the car without distorting the diamonds. The solution was to use a transfer film that was sprayed on and then carefully peeled off, leaving the diamond cut-outs behind. Then workers could spray a crimson red and graphite over the top.

Once the paint was applied, it took another two weeks to sand, smooth, check and then retouch the entire car. Then it was time to deliver the Lady Bug to its new owner.

We’re not sure how much the bespoke finish cost, but we do know that the base Divo costs $5.4 million. That’s a lot of money, even by hypercar standards, and it’s easy to see how the paint job could push that price way over six figures. But hey, we guess that’s what you get when you’re dealing with Bugatti. Check out the gallery above to see the car in all its glory and let us know what you think of the Lady Bug in the comments below.