Ettore Bugatti

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.

In 1907 Bugatti married Barbara Maria Giuseppina Mascherpa. They had two daughters, L'Ébé in 1903 and Lidia in 1907, and two sons, Jean in 1909, and Roland in 1922. His wife Barbara died in 1944, and Bugatti remarried in 1946, to Geneviève Marguerite Delcuze. They had a daughter, Thérèse in 1942 and a son, Michel in 1945.

Bugatti died at the American hospital in the inner-Paris suburb of Neuilly, in the late summer of 1947. Afflicted by the after-effects of a stroke, he had for several months been confined to the Paris apartment in the rue Boissière, which he had owned since 1916. He was almost certainly unaware of the court decision whereby his property in Alsace, which had been seized by the state in the feverish post-liberation frenzy of anger and retribution which his Italian origins had invited, was restored to him on 20 June 1947; Bugatti died just over two months later, on 21 August without having recovered consciousness. Bugatti was buried in the Bugatti family plot at the municipal cemetery in Dorlisheim, near Molsheim, in the Bas-Rhin department of France. Molsheim's Musée de la Chartreuse houses a section dedicated to his life, work, and legacy.