Ettore Arco Bugatti was born in Milan, Italy on September 15, 1881. His dad was a famous carpenter and artist, who built extremely beautiful furniture sold well in a lot of countries. Bugatti took a degree at Milan's Academy of Art and then started to work at a bike factory. At the age of seventeen, he applied a motor to a trike.
By 1901, with the help of some friends, Bugatti had made his first car and introduced it at the International Exhibition in Milan. After that, Bugatti asked a company to manufacture his car. After a couple of challenge, he is accepted. In the next few years, he made 5 more car.
Bugatti spent a large number of time and energy building and developing race car and this made his company unhappy. They terminated his contract. At this time, he worked at Emi Mathias and developed a new car and applied an engine with 4 cylinders.
For Ettore, his goal of life was to develop race car model and he devoted most of his time for it. In 1906, he created a car that had an engine with 50 HP. After that, he was selected to be the leader of production team to manufacture his car in Cologne. However, whenever he had free time, Bugatti worked in the basement of his house to create car designs. And it was there that he created the Model 10.
In 1909, Ettore Bugatti opened up his own automobile factory in Germany. He was financed by a couple of banks to made 10 cars and 5 aircraft. After 1 year, all of 5 cars were sold. In the same year, a Bugatti car was raced in a competition. An this was the start of a legend in the racing tournament.
In the periods of World War I from 1914 to 1918, Bugatti built and manufactured engines of aircraft for both French and the American governments. After the war ended, Bugatti expanded the production and increased the number of employees, which were up to nearly 1000 people.
In 1921, the racing team of Bugatti, with Model 13 cars, won the first 4 places at the Grand Prix in Brescia. The wins help to immortalize the Bugatti Model 13. In 1922, the manufacturer applied 8 cylinders to the 29/30 model of race car. With an advanced chasis and hydraulic brakes in the design of a cigar, this Bugatti car won second place in the ACF Grand Prix.
In 1924, Ettore Bugatti went back to a conventional model of chassis since he wanted to provide the users with a more impressive racing car. The first model of Bugatti that was equipped with the spoke wheel in aluminum and an engine with 8 cylinders was the Model 35. And as we all know, it became the most successful racing car model in the history and continues to be sold these days.
Ettore Bugatti always had a dream of making the most luxurious automobile in the world. And this dream was fulfilled in 1926 when he introduced the Royale model. This car was made with a 300 HP engine in 12.7 litres. Unfortunately, the Royale car came to the market just when the Great Depression emerged and had serious consequences on over the world. He just sold 3 Royale model and his company faced a lot of financial problems.
The period from 1932 to 1934 was really hard for Ettore Bugatti. Nevertheless, he was able to sign a contract with the French authority to develop a new model of high-speed train. The result made the French authority delighted and bring the Bugatti back to a better ground of finance. This train was the exclusive creation of Bugatti himself. During this time, the only model being made was the 57, which was manufactured and sold for about 750 units.
In 1936, his workforce demanded to have an increase in pay and a better working condition. In fact, Bugatti had always paid his employees reasonably with above average wages and offered fine social benefits. Thus, this made him to tackle the strike requests in a personal way. Alhhough Ettore had always kept a good working relationship with the workforce, he now turned bacl to the Paris office.
Once again, the Bugatti suffered from financial problems in the 1930s and even worse after the World War II broke out. After 1945, Ettore Bugatti made a few weak attempts to start the manufacturing at the Molsheim plant again. However, the factory was unable to make any new cars due to financial issues.
On August 21, 1947, Ettore Bugatti suffered from an infection in lung and passed away in a hospital in Paris. About 7900 cars were made under the leading of Bugatti in the company. A lot of them have continued to be produced these days, which proved the skill and genius of Ettore Bugatti. He has left behind a great heritage of devoted contributions in automobile history.