Ettore Bugatti was born on September 15, 1881 in Brescia, Italy, the son of a cabinetmaker and furniture designer, and grandson of a famous sculptor and architect.
After his early schooling, Ettore attended the Fine Arts Academy in Milan. He studied sculpture with his brother Rembrandt, who would become a well-known sculptor.
This artistic background undoubtedly gave him a taste for beauty and elegance that would shape all of his later creations.
Taking the tiller of an early motorized tricycle in 1895 channeled Ettore’s artistic temperament into a passion for mechanics – and triggered his ambition to build his own motor vehicles. At 17 he was apprenticed to a bicycle manufacturer, Prinetti et Stucchi. In 1898 he assembled his first four-wheel vehicle, powered by four one-cylinder de Dion engines. This would later be referred to as the Type 1.
In 1901 Ettore built his first real car, the Type 2, with a four-cylinder engine, four speed gearbox and chain drive to the rear wheels. He was barely 20 years old, but this car won an award from the City of Milan, Bugatti’s first, and caught the eye of a certain Baron de Dietrich.
In 1902 his father signed a contract with de Dietrich, because Ettore was still legally a minor. He moved to Niederbronn in northern Alsace (part of Germany at the time), and over the next few years he designed the Type 3, Type 4 and Type 5, with engines ranging from 5 to 13 liters (about 300 to 790 cubic inches, 16 to 60 HP). These cars were sold as De-Dietrich-Bugattis.
Ettore Bugatti then changed partners, producing the Type 6 and Type 7 in 1904 for Emile Ernest Mathis, who represented several different automotive brands in Strasbourg. He left this company in 1907, moving to Deutz in Cologne as production manager, and designing the Type 8 and Type 9.
While at Deutz, Bugatti also had time to work on his own projects. He designed and built the first "real" Bugatti, the Type 10, nicknamed the "bathtub" or the “little purebred”. Powered by a 1200 cc (73 cubic inch) 4-cylinder engine, the Type 10 was a success. Ettore decided to strike out on his own, and founded his company in 1909 in Molsheim, France (a few kilometers west of Strasbourg), in an abandoned dyeing plant, with about 20 workers. That year also saw the birth of the first of his six children, his son Jean, who would play an active role in the long history of this brand-new company.
“Le Patron” had an inventive, creative mind, symbolized by nearly 1,000 patents – a world record. Ettore Bugatti died in Neuilly, near Paris, on August 21, 1947 at the age of 66.
