I was looking at the Bugatti website:
http://www.bugatti-cars.de/bugatti/index.html
and noticed that during WW1 they produced aircraft for the French & U.S.
There is a conspicuous absence of any information on the 1939-45 period, and I assumed they were controlled by the Germans after 1940, and most likely produced for the German Military.
The factory is/was located in Molsheim, which is in the Alsace region, and I also noticed the company was financed by German banks in the early stages and there would perhaps be German sympathies - due to both location and finance.
Does anyone have any information on Bugatti during the war?
Thanks.
Matt
Bugatti during WW2
When I researched about Bugatti's work I've found this articles about Bugatti taking part in both world wars:
http://www.bugattiaircraft.com/kalempa.htm
http://www.bugattiaircraft.com/flyer-uk.pdf
Bugatti did really done a good job out there.
faf
http://www.bugattiaircraft.com/kalempa.htm
http://www.bugattiaircraft.com/flyer-uk.pdf
Bugatti did really done a good job out there.
faf
I believe there is some information about Bugatti during WW2 in the biography published by his friend WF Bradley in the late 40s - very rare and expensive, I'm afraid.
Also well worth checking out is the new book by Joe Saward called "Grand Prix Saboteurs" - the three racing drivers it features were all well-known Bugattistes and maintained contact with Le Patron during the war.
Also well worth checking out is the new book by Joe Saward called "Grand Prix Saboteurs" - the three racing drivers it features were all well-known Bugattistes and maintained contact with Le Patron during the war.
Last edited by Vitesse on 24 Feb 2007, 03:23, edited 1 time in total.
"Ettore Bugatti: a Biography" by WF Bradley. Published by Motor Racing Publications in 1948. A second impression was published, again by MRP, in 1959.faf_476 wrote:What was the title of the book?
Incidentally, there is a sectioned WW1 Bugatti aero engine in the museum of the Bugatti Trust at Prescott in Gloucestershire, UK.
http://www.bugatti-trust.co.uk/
The story of Bugatti in both world wars is complicated - not least because Ettore Bugatti himself was, throughout both wars, an Italian citizen. In addition, his factory was in Molsheim in Alsace, French territory taken by Germany in the Franco-Prussian War.
When the Great War started, Ettore had just returned from America after attending the Indianapolis 500. Although he was technically living in Germany, he spoke unaccented French like a native, had adopted a French lifestyle and was bringing up his family as French: in short, he felt no allegiance to Germany. On August 1st 1914, knowing that Alsace was likely to be a war zone, he took his family to Stuttgart - the Franco-German border having already been closed - in order to secure their safety. Ettore then returned to Molsheim and rescued two of his T13 racing cars and the 5 litre T18 'Garros' Indianapolis car, which he took first to Stuttgart and then to Friedrichshafen, where the Bugatti family and the cars waited for permission to cross into Switzerland.
Because of his undoubted engineering abilities, the Germans were no doubt keen to keep Ettore, but as he was an Italian citizen, they were powerless to detain him. Bugatti eventually passed through Switzerland to Milan, where the cars were stored in a cellar: Ettore continued to Rome, where he offered the Italian authorities a gun which he had designed. This was rejected, so he asked permission to go to Paris and offer it to the French: he arrived there in October or November 1914, quickly establishing a drawing office (in the Grand Hotel!) and a workshop at Puteaux. Some of the staff from Molsheim joined him.
Bugatti was asked to design an aero engine for the French Army and an experimental 8-cylinder version was tested at the Delaunay-Belleville factory in 1916. Both Delaunay-Belleville (France) and Diatto (Italy) bought the rights to this engine, but it was under-powered and very few were made.
Next step was a "double eight" version, with two engines mounted on a common crankshaft. This attracted the attention of an American mission and they bought the prototype, which was transported to the US, where unsuccessful attempts were made to develop it at the Duesenberg factory in Elizabeth NJ. By the time of the Armistice, only a few pre-production units had been built and the project was abandoned. But not before Bugatti had collected $100,000 for the design ....
Molsheim was restored to France, along with the rest of Alsace, in 1919. The Bugatti factory was found to be somewhat dilapidated but undamaged, having been used by the Germans for making valves, and so Bugatti's plans to establish a new works at La Malmaison near Paris were abandoned.
...........
Ettore Bugatti's son Jean was killed in a road accident while testing a car in August 1939: it is said - probably correctly - that the future of Bugatti died with him. Molsheim was within the Maginot Line, but still vulnerable to air attack, so Bugatti were ordered to move to Bordeaux. By early 1940 they were producing crankshafts for the Hispano-Suiza Y45 V12 engine.
When Italy entered the war on June 11th, Bugatti found himself an enemy alien, a position alleviated when the armistice was signed on June 22nd. The Germans ordered that the whole plant should be returned to Molsheim immediately, but Bugatti had already dismissed all his staff, so this fell on deaf ears.
As part of the armistice, Alsace was returned once more to Germany and the Bugatti works were judged suitable for war production. Ettore was ordered to sell the factory to German engineer Hans Trippel at a fixed price of 7.5 million Reichsmarks: the sale went through on August12th and on January 15th 1941 it became Trippel Werke GMbH, producing amphibious vehicles, torpedo motor parts and (later) V1 parts.
The Bordeaux factory was taken over by the Wehrmacht, but was bombed by the RAF in November 1940.
Meanwhile, Bugatti had returned to Paris and established a drawing office in his apartment at 20 rue Boissière and a workshop at 15 rue Débarcadière. In optimistic mood, they looked towards a post-war world, producing designs for everything from a 10cc engine for bicycles to a 62 litre marine engine. Main projects were the T68 engine (a 316/368cc unit designed to run at 12000rpm) and the 1463cc T73 engine, intended to power a range of road cars and a new racer called the T73C.
Bugatti bought an interest in the Corre-La Licorne factory in 1942 and experimental versions of several designs were built and tested there.
After the war, Bugatti made great claims for the T73C racer, but it all came to naught. The Molsheim factory was almost in ruins but Le Patron was determined to regain it from French state control, a struggle which would ultimately precipitate his death in 1947 after at least one stroke. A sad end ....
[Information from "Bugatti: a racing history" by David Venables (Haynes, 2002)]
When the Great War started, Ettore had just returned from America after attending the Indianapolis 500. Although he was technically living in Germany, he spoke unaccented French like a native, had adopted a French lifestyle and was bringing up his family as French: in short, he felt no allegiance to Germany. On August 1st 1914, knowing that Alsace was likely to be a war zone, he took his family to Stuttgart - the Franco-German border having already been closed - in order to secure their safety. Ettore then returned to Molsheim and rescued two of his T13 racing cars and the 5 litre T18 'Garros' Indianapolis car, which he took first to Stuttgart and then to Friedrichshafen, where the Bugatti family and the cars waited for permission to cross into Switzerland.
Because of his undoubted engineering abilities, the Germans were no doubt keen to keep Ettore, but as he was an Italian citizen, they were powerless to detain him. Bugatti eventually passed through Switzerland to Milan, where the cars were stored in a cellar: Ettore continued to Rome, where he offered the Italian authorities a gun which he had designed. This was rejected, so he asked permission to go to Paris and offer it to the French: he arrived there in October or November 1914, quickly establishing a drawing office (in the Grand Hotel!) and a workshop at Puteaux. Some of the staff from Molsheim joined him.
Bugatti was asked to design an aero engine for the French Army and an experimental 8-cylinder version was tested at the Delaunay-Belleville factory in 1916. Both Delaunay-Belleville (France) and Diatto (Italy) bought the rights to this engine, but it was under-powered and very few were made.
Next step was a "double eight" version, with two engines mounted on a common crankshaft. This attracted the attention of an American mission and they bought the prototype, which was transported to the US, where unsuccessful attempts were made to develop it at the Duesenberg factory in Elizabeth NJ. By the time of the Armistice, only a few pre-production units had been built and the project was abandoned. But not before Bugatti had collected $100,000 for the design ....
Molsheim was restored to France, along with the rest of Alsace, in 1919. The Bugatti factory was found to be somewhat dilapidated but undamaged, having been used by the Germans for making valves, and so Bugatti's plans to establish a new works at La Malmaison near Paris were abandoned.
...........
Ettore Bugatti's son Jean was killed in a road accident while testing a car in August 1939: it is said - probably correctly - that the future of Bugatti died with him. Molsheim was within the Maginot Line, but still vulnerable to air attack, so Bugatti were ordered to move to Bordeaux. By early 1940 they were producing crankshafts for the Hispano-Suiza Y45 V12 engine.
When Italy entered the war on June 11th, Bugatti found himself an enemy alien, a position alleviated when the armistice was signed on June 22nd. The Germans ordered that the whole plant should be returned to Molsheim immediately, but Bugatti had already dismissed all his staff, so this fell on deaf ears.
As part of the armistice, Alsace was returned once more to Germany and the Bugatti works were judged suitable for war production. Ettore was ordered to sell the factory to German engineer Hans Trippel at a fixed price of 7.5 million Reichsmarks: the sale went through on August12th and on January 15th 1941 it became Trippel Werke GMbH, producing amphibious vehicles, torpedo motor parts and (later) V1 parts.
The Bordeaux factory was taken over by the Wehrmacht, but was bombed by the RAF in November 1940.
Meanwhile, Bugatti had returned to Paris and established a drawing office in his apartment at 20 rue Boissière and a workshop at 15 rue Débarcadière. In optimistic mood, they looked towards a post-war world, producing designs for everything from a 10cc engine for bicycles to a 62 litre marine engine. Main projects were the T68 engine (a 316/368cc unit designed to run at 12000rpm) and the 1463cc T73 engine, intended to power a range of road cars and a new racer called the T73C.
Bugatti bought an interest in the Corre-La Licorne factory in 1942 and experimental versions of several designs were built and tested there.
After the war, Bugatti made great claims for the T73C racer, but it all came to naught. The Molsheim factory was almost in ruins but Le Patron was determined to regain it from French state control, a struggle which would ultimately precipitate his death in 1947 after at least one stroke. A sad end ....
[Information from "Bugatti: a racing history" by David Venables (Haynes, 2002)]
Vitesse: that is exaxtly what i was looking for, without any success - many thanks.
It also answers my question regarding the current website and lack of information regarding 1939-45.
Obviously the fact they were producing war materiel for Germany (particularly V1 parts) would not be good promotional information.
Thanks again.
Matt.
It also answers my question regarding the current website and lack of information regarding 1939-45.
Obviously the fact they were producing war materiel for Germany (particularly V1 parts) would not be good promotional information.
Thanks again.
Matt.
It's a precis of the text of the book quoted. No direct quotes.faf_476 wrote:Is that text, a part of the book?
No, you've misunderstood that bit. The Bugatti factory, not the company was sold to Hans Trippel. Chances are that some of Bugatti's staff were employed there, but they would now be working for Trippel GMbH, not Automobiles Bugatti.matt wrote:Obviously the fact they were producing war materiel for Germany (particularly V1 parts) would not be good promotional information.
As I posted above, Ettore moved his centre of operations to Paris - the company's main showroom had always been there and Robert Benoist had been employed there after he effectively retired from racing (he made a couple of brief comebacks). But because he had been deprived of his factory, the much-reduced company was able to do nothing more than prepare and test new designs - see the reference to La Licorne. No new Bugattis were built during the war, but there was still a market for repairing the existing ones.
Bear in mind that Ettore was still an Italian citizen: this must have put him in a difficult position when Italy capitulated to the Allies, but he managed to see the war through without apparent problems. There is at least anecdotal evidence that trucks owned by Automobiles Bugatti were involved - presumably with the permission of Le Patron - in transporting arms and other supplies dropped by the RAF to safe storage on the Benoist estate at Auffargis.
When the war ended, Ettore was almost broke. The cash he had received from the Germans was almost gone and his claims for restitution of the factory were not favourably received: despite the fact that he'd been forced to sell, there were the inevitable allegations of collaboration. Brave announcements were made in October 1945 that no fewer than 20 T73C racing cars would be built for the 1946 season: without a factory, this was doomed to failure before it began, but - unbelievably - there was a further announcement a few weeks later that another 20 would be produced!
In fact, no more than a few parts were ever produced at the rue Débarcadière workshop and it seems certain there was never a serious attempt to produce either the T73C or the T73 road car. The Bugatti Trust have many pictures of a T73C in various stages of assembly, but it was destined never to race: the engine design owed more to 1935 than 1945 and it would have needed a great deal of development to be even vaguely competitive with the Italian Alfa Romeos and Maseratis which dominated the 1946-51 period in Grand Prix racing.
The communist trade unions were strongly opposed to the factory being returned to Ettore and wanted it to be a workers' co-operative. In an attempt to influence opinion, Bugatti finally became a naturalized French citizen on Feb 25th 1946: later that year he made a formal claim for restitution to the court of the Administration des Domaines, but this was rejected. Bugatti appealed in May 1947 and during that hearing the advocate representing the unions made a bitter personal attack on Ettore, which upset him deeply. He travelled to Molsheim, where he gazed sadly through the locked gates of the factory, and then on to the road where his son Jean had died. He collapsed at the scene, probably from a stroke brought on by the stress and emotion of the day.
He returned to Paris, but seems to have sunk into depression and possibly suffered a further stroke. He was admitted to the American Hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine, where he fell into a coma and developed pneumonia. Ettore died on August 21st 1947: he never knew that his appeal had been successful and that the factory had been formally restored to him on June 11th.
Vitesse wrote: No, you've misunderstood that bit. The Bugatti factory, not the company was sold to Hans Trippel. Chances are that some of Bugatti's staff were employed there, but they would now be working for Trippel GMbH, not Automobiles Bugatti.
As I posted above, Ettore moved his centre of operations to Paris - the company's main showroom had always been there and Robert Benoist had been employed there after he effectively retired from racing (he made a couple of brief comebacks). But because he had been deprived of his factory, the much-reduced company was able to do nothing more than prepare and test new designs - see the reference to La Licorne. No new Bugattis were built during the war, but there was still a market for repairing the existing ones.
Bear in mind that Ettore was still an Italian citizen: this must have put him in a difficult position when Italy capitulated to the Allies, but he managed to see the war through without apparent problems. There is at least anecdotal evidence that trucks owned by Automobiles Bugatti were involved - presumably with the permission of Le Patron - in transporting arms and other supplies dropped by the RAF to safe storage on the Benoist estate at Auffargis.
Certainly interesting times for Bugatti, probably the reason there is no mention in the current website is that it would simply be too hard to explain!
Thanks for the information.
Matt
Incidentally, Matt, why do you say in your first post that Bugatti was financed by German banks in the early stages?
The Bugatti website mentions "de Vizcaya". This was Augustin de Vizcaya, a Spanish financier, who Bugatti had known since 1905: he owned a large estate at Jagerhof near Molsheim and once the company was established was an occasional competitor in Bugatti cars before the Great War. His two sons, Pierre and Ferdinand, both raced Bugattis in the 1920s. I believe there was some connection between Augustin and the Darmstädter Bank, but all indications I've seen indicate that it was a private agreement. There may be more details in "Bugatti - Le Pur Sang des Automobiles" by HG Conway, but I don't have a copy of that.
"Works" Bugatti cars competed in the German racing colour of white before 1914: ever afterwards they were blue. The same applies to Mathis, the other motor manufacturer in Alsace. But that's down to the racing rules of the time and Bugatti's presence in Alsace was purely due to his connections with De Dietrich and Mathis.
The Bugatti website mentions "de Vizcaya". This was Augustin de Vizcaya, a Spanish financier, who Bugatti had known since 1905: he owned a large estate at Jagerhof near Molsheim and once the company was established was an occasional competitor in Bugatti cars before the Great War. His two sons, Pierre and Ferdinand, both raced Bugattis in the 1920s. I believe there was some connection between Augustin and the Darmstädter Bank, but all indications I've seen indicate that it was a private agreement. There may be more details in "Bugatti - Le Pur Sang des Automobiles" by HG Conway, but I don't have a copy of that.
"Works" Bugatti cars competed in the German racing colour of white before 1914: ever afterwards they were blue. The same applies to Mathis, the other motor manufacturer in Alsace. But that's down to the racing rules of the time and Bugatti's presence in Alsace was purely due to his connections with De Dietrich and Mathis.
"Ettore's third child, named Jean, was born on January 15th, 1909. At this time, with the support of the banker, de Vizcaya, Bugatti opened a business of his own in a disused dyeing works in the town of Molsheim in the Alsatian region of Germany.Vitesse wrote:Incidentally, Matt, why do you say in your first post that Bugatti was financed by German banks in the early stages?
Subsequently he secured a loan from the Darmstaedter bank allowing him to build ten automobiles and five aircraft engines."
- from the Bugatti website.