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“brother, Rembrandt, and a sister, Deanice. His parents later moved from Milan to Paris, and in both cities their houses were frequented by artists. A few of their names will suffice to show the kind of atmosphere in which the young Ettore grew up and which had so much influence upon him. Among them were Giacomo Puccini and Leoncavallo; Ricordi, the music publisher; Lillica, who was the librettist of most of Puccini’s operas; Arturo Rietti, well known for his pastels; the sculptors Prince Paul ‘Troubetzkoy, De Grandi and Ercole Rosa (Rembrandt's godfather); Giovanni Segantini, well known for his paintings of snow landscapes, whomar- ried Carlo Bugatti’s sister; and finally, when he was in Paris; Leo Tolstoy, whose philosophy left a lasting impression on the family.”
““In this environment,” my father wrote, “I acquired the idea that art could not be learned, and that it was wiser not to persevere if only mediocre progress was made; but that in order to come to such a decision some courage and intel- ‘ligence were necessary, to understand and to judge whether ‘one was worthy of the art or not.””
“Carlo Bugatti and his environment had a great influence on his two sons, especially on Ettore, who learned from him to regard art as a flowering of one’s personality and not as a means of earning money. Ettore also learned that artistic effort is of no use unless one is gifted, and that everything is justifiable in an artist except mediocrity. This was the cause of his change of ambition quite early in life.”
““But then my brother suddenly took to drawing.,J ‘saw at once, and confided in my dear mother that he was the true Bugatti and would soon be far better than I, in spite of my studies, even if he were not already. I told her, too, that two Bugattis in the same class might lead to confusion, and that under the circumstances I preferred to give up art.”
“it really an economic need. As an early motoring corre- spondent, W. F. Bradley, wrote: “It was an aspiration to greater freedom, to an emancipation from the ties which bound man to the earth. The coming of the railways had not roused the same enthusiasm because they had been com- mercialized from the beginning, and because their object was to transport crowds of people, thus making no contribution to individual freedom, which the motor vehicle promised to do.””
““Working in this factory (Prinetti and Stucchi) enabled me to get permission to build the first twin-engine tricycle. I took part in ten races with this first machine of mine and won all of them except one, when I was second. “The best of these races, the one which gave me most satisfaction, was at Turin. I beat Gaste and Rigal, who had come from Paris to beat me. Even before the start, I was sure of winning. “In the Paris-Bordeaux race I averaged fifty miles an hour and was running second, twenty minutes behind Osmont, when I ran out of petrol and had to give up (damaged fuel- tank).””
“On March 12th he was driving in the Verona-Mantua event of one hundred miles. Eighteen tricars took part, and Ettore Bugatti won on a Prinetti tricar fitted with a De Dion-Bouton engine. Count Biscaretti was second, and Fraschini third. In the motor-car class, victory went to Agnelli, driving a Fiat.”
““T had realized by then that I was completely taken by mechanics, in which I could clearly see so many imperfec- tions. My ideas gave me no rest. I had time to reflect and think over my projects, and I suddenly found that I was left to my own devices. (The same thing happened several times in later life.)”
““In the end, I decided to get down to designing my car first, and to plan the assembly of it later. I received a pleasant surprise toward the end of the summer of 1900, when the Gulinelli brothers asked me to join them. My father kindly agreed to participate in a small way, although he had little faith in the success of my undertaking.”
““In October I began making the wooden models which were needed for the casting of the various parts at the foundry. And in the early months of 1901 my second car was ready for the road. “It was a real triumph. I think it must have been the first light car. The 4-cylinder engine was water-cooled, and had a bore and stroke of 90 mm. x 120 mm. It had chain drive, four forward gears and one reverse. Ignition was by electric tube or magneto. “The engine had overhead valves, and I believe I was the first to build engines with this feature. The car could easily reach a speed of forty mph. on the road. An important detail, for that time, was that each pair of valves could be instantly dismantled by the removal of a single nut. The car weighed about thirteen hundredweight.””
““T have built many models since that time, and many of my inventions have fallen into the public domain. When I took out patents it was not to benefit financially from any infringements, but merely to make sure of not impairing the claims of other inventors, and to be quite sure that what I invented belonged to me. My patents result from my own work, and I am happy when I can improve on something already existing and arrive at a point which others have not yet reached. “At one time—I think it was between 1905 and 1908—I had applied for, and been granted, more patents in Germany than anyone else. “This profusion of new mechanical things was facilitated by circumstances which I will explain. It is my belief that the best way of developing one’s ideas is to put them down on paper, to get them on the drawingboard. This is a great help in seeing what can be done.”
“powers of observation; he could reproduce with exactitude something which today we would take a magnifying glass to; he could catch movement as the camera does now, and at the same time he gave the illusion of life to his sketches, some- thing that photography is unable to do. “It is by observation that one can penetrate into the nature of things. If a man like Leonardo became a military engineer, he would be an expert at it; his advice on any subject would be invaluable, and his ideas on the matter would be highly original.”
““Faster progress would be made in all fields if conceit did not cause us to forget or disdain the work done by others before us. There is a tendency to believe that nothing worthy of note has been done in the past, and this has an unfortunate bearing on our judgment; thus the present trend toward mediocrity, not because it would cost more to do better but because we do not know how to do better.”
““To sum up, then—powers of observation and great fa- cility with the pencil are the two attributes that matter most.””
““T took with me, to this factory, the draftsmen who were in my empley and the mechanics who had assembled the model. Production was concentrated on a large car. I was in charge of the production of my car at the Deutz Works, but I had retained the right to work independently on any other project in which I might become interested.””
“much to say that the most valuable clause in his contract, from his point of view, was the one allowing him to experi- ment on projects for his own account. In addition to this in- dependence of spirit, his sense of loyalty to his associates was already showing itself. He retained this team spirit through- out his working life.”
“Of a creator’s personality. But probably none was as con- “cerned as Bugatti to perpetuate this situation. Faced with the attractions of large-scale series production and lower costs, he retained his independent outlook, his freedom to invent, and his urge for perfection down to the smallest de- tails. Production costs meant nothing to him, once he was set on an idea. He took little notice of trends among rival car manufacturers, and paid no more attention to the pre- sumed tastes of the public. It is all the more remarkable that the public followed his so often. Such was the case with the first type he produced at Molsheim.”
“There is really no need to tell you that production of these cars will be very limited and their make faultless. Each one will be tested for at least 600 miles before delivery and will have a five-year guarantee. The car will be extremely dear, but will bear no comparison with any other of its kind.”
“If I succeed in getting what I am striving for, it will un- doubtedly be a car and a piece of machinery beyond all criticism. ~”
“Major Dorand, who was in charge of this Section, at Chalais-Meudon just outside Paris, greeted Bugatti cordially and explained the kind of aeroengine needed. Bugatti set to work at once, alone in his room at the Grand Hotel, to design all the parts of a new type of engine. His designs, which were completed without the help of a drawing office, had no need to be touched up when the engine was being made. Spe- cialists will realize the amount and the complexity of the”
“work involved, as well as the preciseness in visualizing me- chanical details.”
“Bugatti gladly accepted the offer; and from 1915 onwards, in the laboratory which he turned into a miniature factory, he worked hard on a number of mechanical constructions and inventions chiefly related to aircraft. In particular, he designed and built two aeroengines, one a straight-eight cylinder and the other a 16-cylinder double-bank. This period of his life was probably the most inventive of all, and marked a peak in his career.”
“All the engine tests were successful. The French govern- ment also purchased a licence and arranged for production by Peugeot. This engine was a 16-cylinder double-bank 400 HP design, with a reduction gear and layout enabling a 37 mm. cannon to be fired through the propeller shaft; the whole was covered by patents until 1935. This type of*aero- engine was later adapted and produced by Bréguet in France, Napier in England, and Mann in Germany. Many other aeroengines in U-form or H-form are also derived from it.”
“planning to produce a hundred cars a day. But Bugatti, true to his standards, took no interest in that aspect of things. As in the past, he was more concerned to create than to produce. And, for the moment, to create meant to pick up the threads of his research and his work where he had been forced to drop them five years previously, at the outbreak of war.”
“(1) It should be remembered that Ettore Bugatti built up his busi- ness and equipped his experimental workshops by his own unaided efforts. He never received subsidies of any kind, unlike his chief foreign competitors who were given considerable financial help by their gov- ernments, notably in Italy and Germany. As for his aeroengines, during the war, they had not brought him a fortune.”
“handle. A theory generally accepted at the time was that the heavier the weight, the better the car would hold the road at speed. Bugatti, however, thought the opposite; and by the particular arrangement of his chassis proved that he was right.”
““If one looks back at car racing, it can bé seen that great efforts have always been made; but the work involved is such a hard and thankless task that the car manufacturer, poorly rewarded and aghast at spending so much money on doubtful successes or lack of success altogether, seizes upon the first win that comes his way as a pretext for withdrawing from the struggle. “M. Desgranges has just given a striking explanation of all this in a prominent article in L’Auto. He also revealed another pretext used by car manufacturers—the interests of the customer. It would seem that they have no wish to burden the price of their cars with a hundred francs of racing expenses incurred nor to be distracted by racing, and so they leave those larks to young newcomers. “The real truth of the matter is quite different—the reason why a car manufacturer does not race is because, even by spending millions, even by employing his best engineers and mechanics, by using his best machines and choosing the best materials, he would not be sure of winning. “He is afraid of diminishing his reputation, and such a car manufacturer will only chance his arm in individual performances which prove nothing and which are given a lot of publicity ballyhoo, or another will only enter events he is certain of winning and which are given publicity with the help of periodicals and papers well paid for doing so. Such”
““Obviously, it is tempting to stop when you’ve made some progress, but if you want to follow it up you can’t stop. That is why I shall go on, as long as I’m able. I know you can’t always win; but when I’m beaten I shall know why, and I'll beat my rival later on. =”
““There’s another thing that ought to be said, while we're at it. When a car manufacturer builds a racing car he always employs the best possible—the best workmen, the best en- gineers, all the best that his firm can provide. Nothing is too good, nothing is too dear. You’ve got to win, whatever the cost; you work day and night, if necessary. “The car built for a customer (the same one as before, of course) cannot be given such attention (which is the best) because it would cost him too much, nor the same steel, be- cause it’s too dear, nor this or that, to the point where nothing at all can be used. “This is a pity for the customer (still the same one). And this is where I would ask you to pay a short visit to my fac- tory, to see for yourself what you would not find in any other car factory in the world—that my racing cars are pro- duction models just like my sports cars, and that even my tourers have the same engines and mechanism as my racing cars, are built of the same materials and are assembled by the same workmen.”
“Bugatti once received a bill for electricity ac-”
“He was always well dressed, and wore his clothes with quiet elegance whether at the factory or in town. He had a style and manner all his own. His famous brown bowler was part of his silhouette; cartoonists and humorist writers soon noticed that he had pierced some ventilation holes in the crown, and the consternation this caused among hatters was a joy to us all. When his bowler was thrust forward over one eye it meant he was absorbed in thought, was working some- thing out, and no one then approached him unnecessarily. But when his bowler was sitting on the back of his head everyone knew he was in a good humor.”
“companied by a letter written in terms which he considered to be discourteous. He said as much to the manager, adding: “Come and see me in a year’s time. I shall have something interesting to show you.” A year later, he had built his own generating plant near the workshops. It was housed in a building as clean and tidy as the rest, with an immaculate stone floor and tiled walls; and there was a wheeled platform for carrying out any re- pairs. “Everything must be kept spotlessly clean,” the”
