Mat Armstrong gets damaged Bugatti Veyron driving with $3 repair part before finding there's even more than meets the eye
Published on May 20, 2026 at 7:59 PM (UTC+4)
by Alessandro Renesis
Last updated on May 20, 2026 at 7:59 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by
Mason Jones
Mat Armstrong recently bought a damaged Bugatti Veyron, which certainly won’t make Bugatti love him more.
The car was not in good shape, but it is at least drivable.
What’s crazy is that he made it drivable with a $3 fix.
Mind you, the $3 fix revealed much bigger problems.
This is the second Bugatti that Mat Armstrong is fixing
Armstrong is currently working on not one but two damaged Bugattis: the Veyron you see here, and the famous Chiron that Mate Rimac said can’t be saved.
In both cases, Armstrong decided to go the DIY way, and he’s getting increasingly creative when it comes to his ideas.
With the Chiron, he somehow managed to replace the airbags with new ones ‘borrowed’ from an Audi A3.
With this Veyron, he did something even more incredible.
The $3 fix revealed more issues
The repossessed Bugatti Veyron that he bought came with several mechanical faults, including a broken gearbox.
However, Mat realized that the car initially wouldn’t shift into gear due to a fuse he later managed to replace for just $3.
Now, that’s great, but the fix revealed more even more problems.
“We managed to solve the problem with just a tiny fuse. But we all know fuses don’t just end up like that on their own. There’s got to be a problem further down the line,” Armstrong said.
And there was.
The car suffered from persistent cylinder misfires, and while the $3 fix did make the car drivable again, it didn’t solve the problem.
Upon closer inspection, Mat found that the wiring to the hydraulic gearbox pump was also damaged.
And on top of all that, the radiator leaked.
There’s clearly a lot of work he still needs to do, especially because maintenance on a Bugatti is so difficult.
The situation with various fluids alone is problematic.
“Half of this car’s weight must be in fluid,” he joked.
Still, at least he managed to drive it around a bit.
The road ahead is still long but, technically, Armstrong now owns two drivable Bugattis.
After beginning his automotive writing career at DriveTribe, Alessandro has been with Supercar Blondie since the launch of the website in 2022. In fact, he penned the very first article published on supercarblondie.com. He’s covered subjects from cars to aircraft, watches, and luxury yachts - and even crypto. He can largely be found heading up the site’s new-supercar and SBX coverage and being the first to bring our readers the news that they’re hungry for.
