Bugatti
The Italian maverick Ettore Bugatti started producing cars bearing his own name in Germany starting in 1909, after having worked for De Dietrich and Mathis. Around 1912 he designed the Bebe for Peugeot. After the first World War Molsheim became part of France following the Treaty of Versailles. Bugattis first real success in competition was with the Type 13 which had been designed and built while Molsheim was still part of Germany. Post war came his first 8 cylinder 2 litre. This was the basis of so much of the later models including the T35 and all its variants, the final version of which was the T51. The little 4 cylinder Type 40 and its 8 cylinder version the T44 were the backbone for the income for the factory. So much variety was being designed and made, with everything made in house where possible, with foundry, machine shops, even with Bugattis own designed tooling (along with mostly mostly American built machine tools).
The 1930's saw the advent of the T57 but really everything turned when Ettores son Jean was killed while testing the Le Mans car on the road in 1939, coupled with serious ongoing union problems at the factory. Ettore died in 1947 at the age of 66, not long after battling the French Government to regain his factory, but the writing was now on the wall. His son Roland had not been the natural successor that Jean had been tutored for, so Roland needed to rely on others at the factory for decision making. Colombo designed the advanced 251 and 252 but eventually the company was taken over by Hispano-Suiza who the factory was doing contract work for, at a loss as it turned out, in 1963. In the 1990's the name was revived by by Romano Artioli and the EB110 saw light of day in 1991. The Bugatti marque is now owned by Volkswagen Group.
