ABOVE: The Type 37

On The Bugatti Trail

The name Ettore Bugatti meant nothing to me until ten years ago when I stood in front of a classroom full of 14-year-old trainee mechanics. As they tried to explain to me in broken English just who he was, I started to realise that it was Bugatti who made the 1920s and ’30s two of motoring’s most glamorous decades. As an English language assistant posted to teach at the Lycée Ettore Bugatti in Mulhouse, it was no surprise that the more I discovered about Alsace, the more Bugatti stood out as one of its heroes. The love of his cars had caused men to bankrupt themselves, had cut short the life of a world-famous dancer and even lost him his eldest son. So, as the world was witnessing the records set by the latest car made in his name – the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 – I went back to Alsace to see where it all started.

Typically Alsatian
Nestling in the foothills of the Vosges mountains, Molsheim is a pretty little town set around a charming central square, the surrounding narrow streets are overlooked by typically Alsatian half-timbered houses and the town boasts an enormous Jesuit church. It was in Molsheim, in 1909, that Bugatti took over a disused dyeworks to establish his own business and in so doing made the town the true home of the Bugatti brand.

Read the full article on pages 48-54 of this months issue.

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