Breathtaking, luxurious, and utterly irresistible — Bugatti is far more than a car brand. It is a statement. Born in France and rooted in a philosophy of uncompromising excellence, Bugatti has defined what it means to build the world’s most exclusive, high-performance automobiles. From early racing legends to modern hypercars, let’s explore the full story behind one of the most iconic names in automotive history.
How Bugatti Was Founded: The Story of Ettore Bugatti
The Bugatti story begins with a remarkable man. Ettore Bugatti was born in Italy in 1881, into a family deeply rooted in the arts. His grandfather was a sculptor and architect, his father a gifted furniture carver, jeweler, and painter. Art ran in the family’s blood — and so, eventually, did engineering.
After the Bugatti family relocated to France, young Ettore and his brother Rembrandt pursued both painting and sculpture. But the streets of French cities were rapidly filling with self-propelled carriages, and Ettore became fascinated. By 1897, at just 16 years old, he joined the Prinetti automobile company, where he first encountered competition cars — the direct ancestors of modern racing vehicles.
Despite having no formal technical education or engineering diploma, Ettore’s aesthetic training gave him extraordinary design instincts and an almost innate engineering talent. At 17, he built a three-wheeled cart powered by four single-cylinder engines in the basement of his family home. The vehicle entered the Paris–Bordeaux automobile race, though an unfortunate collision with a dog cut the run short. Undeterred, Ettore repaired the machine and went on to win the next three motor races.
At 20, with his father’s support, Ettore opened his own garage. His second car caught the attention of the De Dietrich firm: it reached 65 km/h, featured a four-cylinder engine, and won a gold medal at the Milan Trade Fair. De Dietrich hired Ettore as a designer and purchased the car’s production rights. After several more career moves, Ettore made his most important decision: in 1909, in the town of Molsheim, Alsace, he founded his own automobile company. The Bugatti brand was officially born.
The First Bugatti Cars: Type 10, Type 35, and the Rise to Racing Glory
Ettore’s first true production car was the Bugatti Type 10, featuring a four-cylinder, eight-valve engine with a displacement of 1,131 cc. While not perfect, the Type 10 had an impressively successful chassis, and Ettore secured a sponsor to bring it to market. Its body shape was unconventional — often compared to a bathtub — but it laid the foundation for everything that followed.
A year later, the Bugatti Type 13 rolled out of the factory gates — and with it came the defining characteristics that would shape every Bugatti model to come:
- The iconic horseshoe-shaped radiator grille
- Exceptional road stability
- Outstanding handling and maneuverability, especially through sharp corners
- A top speed of 100 km/h, ahead of its time
The Type 13 dominated motor racing, leaving all competitors behind. Models 15 and 17 followed, with extended wheelbases. Between 1910 and 1920, more than 400 of these cars were built, racking up hundreds of race victories.
Bugatti’s racing reputation grew to legendary status throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Key milestones from this golden era include:
- 1923 – Bugatti Type 32: Nicknamed “the tank” due to its distinctive shape
- 1924 – Bugatti Type 35: The model that made Bugatti world-famous in motorsport. With an eight-cylinder engine (1,991 cc, 95 hp) and superb handling, the Type 35 and its variants (35A, 35B, 35C, 35T) accumulated approximately 1,800 victories between 1924 and 1930, with 336 cars produced in total
- 1927 – Bugatti Type 41 La Royale: One of the most ambitious and luxurious cars ever built, with a 13-liter engine, 260 hp, and a wheelbase exceeding 4.27 meters. Due to the Great Depression, only six were ever produced instead of the planned 25
- 1931 – Bugatti Type 51: An eight-cylinder, 2,261 cc engine producing 140 hp
- 1931 – Bugatti Type 54: A 4,972 cc, 300 hp powerhouse that set a speed record of over 210 km/h
- 1934 – Bugatti Type 57: The dream car of millionaires and top racing drivers, setting a speed record of 218 km/h and winning dozens of races. The rare Atlantic variant on the Type 57SC chassis was produced in only three copies — all of which have survived to this day
Bugatti’s racing victories attracted an elite clientele. Writers, actors, politicians, and aristocrats purchased racing cars not necessarily to compete, but to display status on the new high-speed autobahns of Europe. To accommodate them, Bugatti began converting race cars into road-legal sports cars — adding headlights, roofs, footrests, and fenders while continuously improving performance.
Tragedy struck in 1939 when Ettore’s son Jean — groomed to lead the company — died during testing of the Bugatti Type 57S 45. Jean was not yet thirty years old. The loss devastated Ettore, now in his sixties, and cast a long shadow over his remaining years.
Ettore Bugatti the Man: Passions, Personality, and Eccentricities
Ettore Bugatti was as remarkable as the cars he built. Beyond engineering, he was a collector, an artist, and a man of strong convictions with a notoriously unconventional personality. His hobbies and pursuits were as diverse as they were extravagant:
- Painting and collecting fine art, including sculptures by his son Roland
- Breeding and racing thoroughbred horses
- Raising fox-terriers
- Curating an impressive wine collection across two private castles
- Designing a fully functional bicycle — which he rode personally through his own factory floors
- Building a fishing trawler
- Creating the “Baby Bugatti” — a miniature electric car for his youngest son, capable of 17 km/h. Demand from wealthy neighbors was so high that nearly 500 units were produced between 1927 and 1930
Ettore ran his factory with near-obsessive attention to cleanliness and order. He famously refused to install hydraulic brakes when engineers suggested replacing mechanical ones, declaring: “I make my cars to go, not to stop!”
His clientele included kings and heads of state from across Europe — yet Ettore was not above refusing a sale. The Bulgarian monarch, for instance, was denied a Bugatti after Ettore allegedly observed poor table manners. Celebrities accepted these eccentricities as the price of dealing with a true genius.
In 1947, Ettore presented his final model — the Bugatti Type 73 — at the Paris Motor Show. Two weeks later, he passed away. His son Roland took over the company, but the brand struggled without its visionary founder. A prototype of the powerful Bugatti 451 V12 was unveiled in 1959, but the project was never completed. In 1963, Bugatti was acquired by rival manufacturer Hispano-Suiza, and the original company ceased to exist. But the story was far from over.
Modern Bugatti: A Legendary Brand Reborn
Bugatti’s revival began in the late 1980s, when a new wave of supercar development pushed manufacturers to chase the 322 km/h barrier. A bold, unconventional model — the EB110 — emerged, followed by its high-performance sibling, the EB110 SS. At the 1993 Geneva Motor Show, Bugatti unveiled the EB112, a four-door sedan derived from the EB110 platform.
The most pivotal moment came in 1999, when Volkswagen Group acquired the Bugatti brand for the fourth time in its history, signaling a serious commitment to restoring its place at the pinnacle of automotive engineering. What followed was a string of landmark unveilings:
- EB118: A fiberglass coupé designed by ItalDesign’s Fabrizio Giugiaro, debuted at the 1999 Geneva Motor Show
- EB218: A sedan with a full aluminum body using Audi’s ASF technology, also shown in Geneva in 1999
- EB 18/3 Chiron: A prototype named after legendary French racing driver Louis Chiron, unveiled at the 1999 Frankfurt Motor Show
- EB 18/4 Veyron: Introduced in Tokyo in 1999 by Volkswagen, designed at the VW design center under Hartmut Warkuss, featuring distinctive aluminum air intakes at the rear
- Bugatti Veyron 16.4: Launched in serial production in 2005, with the first customer delivery made in March 2006 — one of the most celebrated hypercars in history
- Bugatti La Voiture Noire (2019): The most expensive Bugatti ever created, priced at 16.5 million euros. A one-of-a-kind supercar with a handcrafted carbon fiber body, built for Ferdinand Piëch — grandson of Porsche founder Ferdinand Porsche, and former head of the Volkswagen Group
Today, approximately 80 Bugatti vehicles are assembled each year, most of them delivered directly from the historic factory in Molsheim to their owners around the world. The brand’s identity remains unchanged: the iconic oval logo with the founder’s initials is bordered by 60 pearls — a symbol of precision, craftsmanship, and exclusivity that has endured for over a century.
Bugatti represents the absolute pinnacle of automotive engineering and design — a brand that demands drivers who match its exceptional standards. If you’re planning to get behind the wheel of a world-class vehicle anywhere in the world, make sure your documentation is ready. You can quickly and easily obtain an international driver’s license through our website. After all, a Bugatti deserves to be driven by a professional.
Published December 13, 2019 • 8m to read
