万花筒 2008-04-13&-4-14 世界上最贵的车, 不是劳斯莱斯哦！（在线收听）

The world's most expensive and fastest production car has arrived in America. The Bugatti Veyron Hermes Edition costs 2.4 million dollars, and that's before taxes. Today in New York I spoke to Bugatti and Hermes executives about the design of this car.

And what makes it worth so much money?

 So the Bugatti Veyron base model retails for around 1.7 million dollars. Why does a 1.7-million-dollar car need a deluxe edition?

 Yeah, well, that's because our customers increasingly ask for more and more individualization on their cars, and so here we've given the option by working with Hermes to have really another step in individualization.

 At least we, we need one month to build this car.

 It takes one month, and it took just 30 hours for the steering wheel leather, right?

 Yeah, steering wheel is difficult because you see, you have very few space here when you have to stitch in the inside of the steering wheel, it's very difficult, and you have to adjust your leather to come right into the middle on both sides. So it's all done by hands. So it needs a lot of time to do that.

 Is this a good time to launch such a kind of car?

 Well, I mean that's a good question. But effectively America is a very important part of our market. It represents about 35% of the sales that we've already done. And in any recession, there are always people that benefit from recession--people involved in oil, people involved in other parts of the world, maybe people who've got investments in other part of the world. They still, still have their money.

 I find that across the board, really, what you find is that even in times of recession, and a slower market, people still want to have something of great quality. So if you are really only gonna be able to buy one thing, I find that people really want it to be the best thing that they can buy, whether it's an Hermes silk tie or whether it's a Bugatti Veyron.

 So if you buy this car, do you throw in an extra scarf, you know, to throw in an Hermes scarf or anything?

 Yeah! Hahah. If you buy this car, you have an Hermes ambience. So you can bring your scarves and your ties inside, no problem. But what we try to do is to bring maybe serenity, comfort, elegance, and simple ambience that will contrast with the, very fast cars that it is.

 Hermes' fans have to act fast. Only 10-15% of Bugatti's 300 Veyrons will carry the Hermes signature. At least 5 have been sold.

 I'm Elva Ramirez for the Wall Street Journal.