Ettore Bugatti

Ettore Arco Isidoro Bugatti (15 September 1881 – 21 August 1947) was an Italian-French automobile designer and manufacturer. He received French citizenship in 1946 and is remembered as the founder and proprietor of the automobile manufacturing company Automobiles E. Bugatti, which he founded in 1909 in the then German town of Molsheim in the Alsace region of what is now France. Bugatti died in Paris and is buried in Dorlisheim, France.

Bugatti was born into an artistic family in Milan, Italy. He was the elder son of Carlo Bugatti (1856–1940), an important Italian Art Nouveau furniture and jewellery designer, and his wife, Teresa Lorioli (1862–1935). His younger brother, Rembrandt (1884–1916), was a renowned animal sculptor. His aunt, Luigia Bugatti, was the wife of the painter Giovanni Segantini. His paternal grandfather, Giovanni Luigi Bugatti, was an architect and sculptor.

Bugatti's father intended that he follow a conventional technical apprenticeship with one of the Milanese tri-/quadricycle manufacturers, but the boy quickly demonstrated a deep instinctive understanding of the wide range of aspects of motor-vehicle construction, and with Prinetti & Stucchi constructed his "Bugatti Type 1" in 1898.

With financial support from a Count Gulinelli, Bugatti developed a second prototype, the Type 2, which was a prize-winning exhibit at the Milan Trade Fair in the Spring of 1901. His design also caught the eye of Baron Adrien de Turckheim, who offered Bugatti the opportunity to come and design automobiles at his Lorraine-Dietrich car factory in Niederbronn. Frontier changes following the Franco-Prussian War had left De Dietrich with two car factories in two different countries: the Niederbronn plant, to which Bugatti now relocated was in Alsace, which had been part of Germany since 1871, reverting to French control only in 1919. In 1902 Ettore became the head of technology at De Dietrich.

From 1902 through 1904, De Dietrich built his Type 3/4 and Type 5/6/7, identified at the time with the name "De Dietrich, Licence Bugatti". While working for De Dietrich Bugatti met Émile Mathis. The two became first friends and then business partners, leaving De Dietrich in 1904 in order to produce automobiles of their own, which were identified with the name "Mathis-Hermes (Licence Bugatti)". This arrangement lasted till 1906 after which the partners went their separate ways, and Bugatti set up a "Research centre" at Illkirch-Graffenstaden, now a suburb on the south-side of Strasbourg. He produced several prototypes, collaborating closely with the Cologne based Deutz company.

In 1907, Bugatti was appointed Production Director ("Directeur des fabrications") with Deutz. Here he designed the Type 8/9. While employed at Deutz, Bugatti built the Type 10 in the basement of his home. In 1913, Bugatti designed a small car for Peugeot, the Type 19 Bébé.

Despite being born in Italy, Bugatti established his automobile company, Automobiles E. Bugatti, in 1909 in the then German town of Molsheim in the Alsace region of what is now France. The maker was known for some of the fastest, most luxurious, and technologically advanced road cars of its day. Exceptional engineering led to success in early Grand Prix motor racing, with a Bugatti being driven to victory in the first Monaco Grand Prix.

While displaced from his home in Alsace by World War I, Bugatti designed aeroplane engines, notably the somewhat baroque 16-cylinder U-16, which was never built in any large number and was installed in only a very few aircraft. Between the wars Bugatti designed a successful motorized railcar dubbed the Autorail Bugatti, and won a government contract to construct an airplane, the Model 100. It was designed by Louis de Monge using two type 50B Bugatti engines but never flew due to the outbreak of World War II. Surgical instruments, designed by Bugatti for a friend who was a professor at a nearby hospital, are still in use to this day.