Who Owns Bugatti And Where Are The Cars Built?

Bugatti is globally recognized for making intricately glamorous, high end, high performance supercars that have been setting the standard for speed and performance for many years now. For example, in 2019, the high-flying Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+ took supercar performance to new heights when it achieved a top speed of 304.773 mph to become the first roadgoing car to hit 300 mph. Since then, the Chiron Super Sport 300+ has bulldozed its way onto every single list of the world's fastest supercars and continues to be the benchmark by which others must all be judged. Such feats don't just occur by happenstance, however. Rather, they take sound management, as well as long, hard preparation. So, what's Bugatti's story? Who owns Bugatti?

In its modern form, Bugatti has been owned by the Bugatti Rimac since 2021. Bugatti Rimac is a joint venture between Rimac Group and Volkswagen-owned Porsche AG (not to be confused with holding company Porsche SE, which owns a controlling stake in Volkswagen). Per the joint venture agreement, Porsche's stake in Bugatti is 45 percent, leaving Mate Rimac's Rimac Group with a controlling 55 percent of Bugatti. It's worth mentioning that Porsche also has a 24% stake in Rimac Group, which it shares with biggest shareholder Mate Rimac (37%), Hyundai Motor Group (12%), and others (27%) – although that still doesn't give Porsche a commanding interest in Bugatti.

Currently, Bugatti builds its cars entirely in its state-of-the-art production facility in Molsheim, France, which it also refers to as the Bugatti Atelier. With Bugatti's old plant still under Snecma's possession, Volkswagen — which owned Bugatti between 1998 and 2021 — decided to build a new factory and also renovate the Château Bugatti, a mansion previously used by Ettore Bugatti to host and entertain customers. The Atelier was completed and opened in September 2005, with the Bugatti Veyron becoming the first car to be produced at the facility. In all, 450 Veyron models were handcrafted at the new Bugatti Atelier between 2005 and 2015.

Bugatti has also produced all of its modern cars at the Atelier, including the Bugatti Chiron, Chiron Sport, Chiron Pur Sport, Chiron Super Sport 300+, Bugatti Divo, Bugatti Centodieci, as well as the pretty expensive and ultra-exclusive Bugatti La Voiture Noire. In light of the Bugatti Rimac takeover, the company said Bugatti will continue making its cars at the Molsheim production facility, meaning the Chiron's replacement, the upcoming 2026 Bugatti Tourbillon will also be hand-assembled at the Atelier. 

To give you an understanding of how Bugatti reached this point of manufacturing at the new Atelier, we've looked back at its history below. 

Bugatti has had an eventful history prior to the 2021 takeover. Founded in 1909 by Italian-French automobile designer Ettore Bugatti in Molsheim in modern-day France (Molsheim was part of Germany back then), it began building vehicles the following year in 1910, starting with the Type 13. Bugatti soon became famous for race cars and charismatic styling with the likes of the legendary Type 35 (the world's most successful race car to date with 2,000 victories to its name), the Type 10, Type 32, Type 29/30, Type 50, the Type 56 electric vehicle, Type 55, Type 57, Type 57G, Type 57s, and 57SC, being some of the most celebrated models.

Bugatti also had interest in the aeronautics industry and was reputable for manufacturing airplane parts, including aircraft engines during the First World War and later the Type 67 V16 aero-engine. The company also built a racer airplane known as the Bugatti 100P, which, sadly, never got airborne, later disassembled due to the looming World War II. Though the Second World War was impactful, the death of Ettore Bugatti's then 30-year-old son, Jean Bugatti, in August 1939 while testing a Bugatti Type 57 prototype was where the company's direction began to shift.

Like his father, Jean Bugatti had come into his own by this time as an automotive designer, having already been responsible for the Bugatti Type 50, Type 55, Type 57, and the iconic Type 57SC Atlantic. Following Ettore Bugatti's death in 1947, the company encountered financial difficulties and eventually closed its car production facility in 1952. And with that, Bugatti's factory operations were limited to airplane production equipment and parts. Etorre Bugatti's surviving son, Roland Bugatti, attempted unsuccessfully to revive the company in the mid-1950s, and in 1963, Bugatti was sold to aircraft supplier Hispano-Suiza.

After purchasing Bugatti, Hispano-Suiza repurposed the old Bugatti factory for aerospace work and began making landing gear at the facility. In 1978, Snecma — now part of the French Safran Group – acquired Hispano-Suiza and assumed control of Bugatti, which it later reorganized into Messier-Bugatti in 1977 after taking over Messier. A decade later in 1987, the Bugatti brand name was bought by Italian entrepreneur Romano Artioli, kick-starting what would spawn into the modern-day behemoth. Artioli built a new production facility for Bugatti in Campogalliano, Italy. 

The Bugatti EB110 GT was the first Bugatti Automobili S.p.A. vehicle to be made under Artioli's management. It had a rear mid-mounted, 3.5-liter quad-turbocharged, 60-degree V12 engine that generated 553 horsepower and 451 pound-feet of torque, with that output enough to propel it to 62 mph in 3.26 seconds and onto a top speed of 218 mph (351 kph), according to Bugatti data. The roadgoing variant was complemented with an even more aggressive track version called EB 110 Super Sport (or EB 110 SS), which had the same engine as the GT model but upped output to 611 horses and 480 pound-feet of torque for an even faster 0-60 mph sprint time of 3.1 seconds, per Zeroto60times.

[Featured image by Stefano Mecchia via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY 2.0]

Buoyed by the EB 110's seeming success, Artioli decided in 1993 to buy up Lotus Cars to add to his automotive enterprises. Bugatti also revealed the prototype of the follow-up to the EB 110, the EB112 four-door sedan, in the same year. But as some people know all too well, ambition can be an enemy of best intentions. 

The release of the EB 110 happened at a time when North America and Europe were suffering an economic downturn, due, among other things, to the tightening of monetary policy by central banks, decreased government spending, and the 1990 oil price shock. Of course, a depressed economy is often accompanied by a shrinking market for luxury cars, especially for expensive super sports cars like the EB 110. The vehicle had a starting price point of 450 million Italian lira (about $500,000 in those days, according to Hagerty). Bugatti also spared no expense in making its supercars, which also meant it was left with limited funds for the future, and when you put it all together, the result was obvious: Bugatti again faced financial struggles and eventually shut down in 1995. 

The incident saw Dauer Racing – a German automotive company – buy EB110 license and leftover parts to make additional EB110 SS models in 1997. Bugatti's Campogalliano facility was also sold off to a furniture-making company. In 1998, Volkswagen Group, under the stewardship of engineer Ferdinand Piëch and in its effort to expand into the upper luxury segment, acquired the Bugatti brand for a reported $50 million after securing brand rights for Bugatti ahead of German rival BMW.