Bugatti is the famous French automobile brand. It was founded by Ettore Bugatti (1881 – 1947), an Italian born automobile designer and engineer who lived and worked in France.
Ettore Arco Isidoro Bugatti, after finishing school and shortly attending Academy of Art, became an apprentice at the bicycle and tricycle manufacturing plant Prinetti & Stucchi at the age of seventeen. He built his first engine-driven tricycle there, followed by his first automobile, financed by Gulinelli brothers, in 1900. This car won an award at an internationally renowned industry fair in Milan. From 1900 to 1904, he worked as technical director of De Dietrich’s automobile manufacturing plant and developed new car models. After that, he got the job at Emi Mathias where he designed a new automobile and installed a 4-cylinder engine. He stayed there for two years.
Ettore Bugatti was very passionate about designing race cars. In 1906 he developed an automobile with a 50 hp engine and sold it to Deutz Company. He was named the leader of the production department in Cologne.
Ettore Bugatti founded his own automobile company in 1909 in Molsheim, in the French region Alsace which belonged to Germany in that period. In 1910 five cars were built and all of them were sold. Bugatti's assistant Ernest Fredrich drove Bugatti cars in races. Bugatti’s models became appreciated as quality race cars. The first Monaco Grand Prix in 1929 was won by William Grover-Williams who was driving a Bugatti car. Between the years of the First World War, Bugatti designed and produced aircraft engines for both the American and French governments. In 1921, Bugatti's race car team took first, second, third and fourth place in Brescia at the Voiturettes Grand Prix and these wins immortalized the Bugatti Model 13. Bugatti’s dream to build the most luxurious car ever made came true in 1926 with the development of Royale model. Only three Royles were sold due to the Great Depression.
The years of the Great Depression brought financial problems to the company, but Bugatti managed to get the contract to build a new high speed train for the French government. The only car model that was still being produced at this critical period at the beginning of the 1930's was the Model 57.
Although only about 7,900 automobiles were built while Ettore Bugatti was in charge of the company, many of these vehicles have survived to this day. The founder died in 1945, and after that the company struggled financially, releasing only one more car in the 50s. Italian company Romano Artioli was the first one to revive the brand in 1991. It launched the EB110 in time for Ettore Bugatti's 110th birthday. Only about 150 cars were produced, and the company closed again in 1995.
The second revival of the brand was due to the German Volkswagen company, which bought the Bugatti name and reopened the factory in Molsheim. In 2005, the company presented the Bugatti Veyron 16.4, luxurious, well designed and fast.
Bugatti fragrances are made in cooperation with the Jacques Bogart Group.
