Bugatti Profile






By N2H

The Bugatti car company was founded by Ettore Bugatti in the year 1909. The original company which was situated in Molsheim region of France was known for its some of the exclusively designed and fastest cars in the world.

At his young age Bugatti was very much fascinated by the automobile technology. During his time automobile industry has been a new field which was recently emerged. When he was 17, he was able to develop a tricycle which runs on motor. With his first motor vehicle, he participated in the race. Till 1909 he worked in different companies and developed different models. It was after the birth of his third son Jean Ettore Bugatti; he decided to start his own company. Initially he got loan from the bank to produce a few automobiles and five aircraft engines.

The first automobile from the Bugatti car company came out in the year 1910. In the same year, Bugatti cars participated in the races which was a turning point for the historical triumph of Ettore’s racing cars. Ernest Fridrich, the most reliable assistant of Ettore, represented Bugatti in races.

In the consecutive years, Bugatti won a series of races. Thus Bugatti’s remarkable performance made an innegligible presence in the races. In 1911 Bugatti entered in to contract with Peugeot to make engines for the production of Bebe Peugeot which eventually becomes a huge success.

At the time of First World War, Ettore Bugatti developed airplane engines for both the American as well as French government. The money which he received for this work brought him the necessary capital to enable him to expand the operations in the Molsheim plant. Thus the number of employees as well as production was increased. This was a milestone event in the history of Bugatti.

In the following years, Bugatti dominated in almost all the races by constantly acquiring first, second or third places. Till Great Depression of 1929 the company was at its peak. During 1914 itself, Ettore Bugatti dreamed of building a most expensive legendary car in the world. As a result of his hard work, his dream came in to realization on 1926 through the introduction of Royale models. Even according to the present market, it is the expensive car in the world. But it hit the market in the wrong time i.e. at the time of Great Depression. This expensive model severely affected the company’s financial position.

The Second World War and employees’ strike followed by the great depression very much affected the financial position of the company. The death of Ettore’s son Jean was also another important factor which very much affected the company’s existence. The production was declined due to insufficient capital. After the death of Ettore Bugatti in 1947 the company could not make a come back. The later models such as Type 251 failed to fulfill the expectations.

The company was later sold to Hispano-Suiza in 1963. From Hispano-Suiza it passes over to Snecma in 1968. The Bugatti was later acquired by Messier in 1977 and was later known as Messier-Bugatti. In 1998 Volkswagen legally acquired the name of Bugatti and start producing cars under this brand name. Under Volkswagen it developed many brands such as EB118, EB218, 18/3 Chiron etc. In the year 2000 Volkswagen founded Bugatti Automobiles SAS and it introduced the most powerful car ever seen, Bugatti Veyron 16/4 with a top speed of 253 mph. It is a 1000 hp car with sixteen cylinders. The car takes only 2.5sec to reach to reach 0-100kmph. A Bugatti Veyron 16/4 costs around $2.3 million, not including taxes.

Till now Bugatti works separately as a subsidiary unit of Volkswagen. The future project of Bugatti is Bugatti Lydia which has an astonishing 1175 hp with a top speed of 280 mph that costs around $3million.

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