(car revving) (laughing) - It's the French car company, with an Italian name, that was started in Germany. The creators of 16
cylinder, quad turbo beasts, that go almost 300 miles an hour. The most power patron. (car revving) This baddy's died twice
and was resurrected twice. This is everything you need to know to get up to speed on Bugatti. ♪ I woke up in a new Bugatti ♪ (techno music) Actually, it would be cooler
to wake up in an old Bugatti, because they're worth
like, 16 million dollars. The Bugatti's that we all know, the Veyron and the Chiron,
are unbelievably sick. (kissing sounds) They're pieces of art. But, did you know, that most of the coolest
things about Bugatti, happened almost 100 years ago? We're gonna talk about the new Bugatti's, including a secret special
edition, coming out this month. But to understand Bugatti as a company, you have to understand
the man behind the brand. Etorre Arco Isidoro Bugatti
was born in Milan, Italy, in 1881 into an artistic family. He's father, Carlo, was an internationally
acclaimed silverware, jewelry and furniture designer. He made this chair. His younger brother, Rembrandt Bugatti, was an accomplished animal sculpture. He made this lion. His grandpa, Giovanni Luigi Bugatti, was a successful architect and sculpture. He made dope buildings. Etorre was a creative kid, but he had his eye on
something other than art. - Babo, I don't want to make the chairs. The chairs, they are boring to me. - Ah, that's okay. - And I don't want to make the lions. The lions, they are boring. - Ah, that's fine. You do what make you happy. - The cars, Papo, the
cars, they make me happy. - Then the cars, the cars
are what you are gonna make. Now here, have some wine. - I love the wine, Papa. - You's a five years old. Is a time for a wine. - Etorre's dad was super supportive. And in 1898, he hooked him
up with an apprenticeship at Prinetti and Stucchi. A company based out of
Etorre's hometown of Milan. They had recently pivoted from making sowing machines and bicycles, to making motorized
tricycles and quadricycles, which, I'm assuming is just
an oldtimey name for a car. It was at Prinetti and Stucchi that Bugatti began tinkering with one of their existing
one cylinder tricycles. Bugatti added another engine to it, and called it the Bugatti
Typo Uno, or, Type 1. He entered into local races, and immediately, he started winning. The Type 1 was an amazing achievement, especially for a fricken 17 year old. I mean, who is this guy, Billie Eilish? But, it would be Etorre's next project that would define his legacy. The year is 1900, Etorre
develops and builds the Type 2. With help from his good friend, and totally not a
vampire, Count Gulinelli. The Count saw a lot of
talent, and probably, fresh blood in Etorre, and
backed him from an early age. This new design had a 3.1
liter, inline 4 cylinder engine, and could go 37 miles per, which was pretty fast
back in thems olden times. Ettore entered the Type 2
in the Milan Trade Fair, and sure enough, it won an award. All that trade fair buzz
attracted the attention of a man who owned and industrial firm, Baron De Dietrich. - That guy totally sounds
like a vampire too. So (nervous laugh) - He offered the then 20 year old Etorre, the job of technical
director at his plant. The factory was located in Niederbronn. A town in the province of Alsase, on the French and German border. This territory was historically disputed. And had been claimed by Germany since the Franco-Prussian
War ended in 1871. Anyway, the De Dietrich plant got to producing Type 2 cars
based off of Bugatti's design. Over the next couple years, Etorre developed the 12.9 liter Type 5, as well as the Type 6, and 7, under the De Dietrich Bugatti marque. After he got bored with that, he started working at
the Deutz Motor company, based out of Cologne, Germany where Bugatti designed the
Type 8 and Type 9 cars. Very good at designing cars, kinda lazy with naming 'em. Etorre was an amazing
designer and engineer, and he wanted nothing more than to start his own car company. So, he began building a
powerful, lightweight automobile in his own basement. In 1909, he finished the
prototype named, the Type 10, aka Le Petit Pur-Sang. French, for the the small thoroughbred. Literally, a tiny buffed horse. Okay, there's one thing you need to know about Etorre Bugatti. The dude fricken loved horses. Not just buffed horses. He loved all types. Prancey Bois, Long Haired
Trotters, Macaroni Ponies, all of 'em. Later in life, he even made
the Bugatti factory halls big enough so he could
ride around on his horse. And he designed the doors in the factory, so that horses could open
them with their noses. Imagine that. I roll into Donut on a
well behaved buff horse. And they just open the garage door, and I ride my horse straight to my desk. And if anyone tries to talk to me before I've had my cold brew, and my horse has had their oats, he just kicks 'em away! (beep) With his new prototype
finished and ready to go, Bugatti ended his contract with Deutz. Another project, nine
months in the making, had just wrapped up. Etorre's wife, Barbara, had
given birth to their son, Jean. Etorre took the severance
pay from his Deutz job, and bought a dyeworks factory
in the city of Molsheim, back in Alsase. Automobiles e Bugatti, she was born. (car revving) The first official Bugatti
production car was a Type 13. Its engine was a 1.4 liter, inline 4, that made about 30 horsepowers. More than enough for a car
that weighed 660 pounds. Customers could chose
from an angled grill, or an egg shaped grill, until 1912, when Bugatti switched to
only the egg shaped grills. A characteristic that would become one of their defining
features to this day. A Type 13 was entered into the
1911 Grand Prix, at Lemans. It looked much smaller than
its thick boy competitors, but ended up surprising
everyone and took second place. Bugatti was up and running,
producing their own cars. One of the cooler cars of this time, was the Type 18 Black Bess. A slick, gold accented two
seater, powered by a five liter four cylinder engine. The Black Bess was one of the worlds first street legal race cars, and could do 100 miles an hour. In 1912. That's freaking crazy. Etorre also designed a cute little car for Peugot called the Bèbè. (speaking in foreign language) But right as business started ramping up, something wicked came
knocking at the door. - Hello. - Hey, it's me, the Great War. - Yes? - Yeah, we need you to stop making cars, and help us win the war. - Okay. - And so Bugatti was
forced to drop everything and help with the war effort. Etorre and his family moved
back to Milan, then to Paris, where he developed eight and
16 cylinder plane engines. After the war had ended,
Bugatti returned to Molsheim, to find out that it wasn't
part of Germany anymore. The Alsase region now belonged to France. So, his factory was now in France. Bugatti's, from this point on, would be painted French Racing Blue. The British had green, the
Germans, they got silver, the French, had this blue. It's beautiful. Business started picking
up for the company, like right after the war ended. Bugatti's first major
success was the new Type 13s, which had resumed production in 1919. The cars were updated with
four valves per cylinder, instead of two, making it
the first full production, multi valve car ever made. (engine rumbling) They Type 13 won the
Grand Prix De La Sarthe at Lemans in 1920. And the next year, at
the Brescia Grand Prix, Bugatti took first, second,
third and fourth places. This earned the Type 13's
the nickname Brescia's. There were a ton of cool Bugatti's produced around this time. Like the Type 29 Cigar, the Type 32 Tank, which introduced aerodynamics to racing. And maybe, the most important
Bugatti of all time, the Type 35. This car, and I am not being overdramatic, is the most successful racing car ever! (engine revving) It has over 2000
victories and podium spots in the 10 years that it raced. At the height of the Type 35's success, they averaged 14 race wins a (beep) week. It was a two liter, inline
eight with a single overhead cam and a unique set of bearing
that had never been seen before. The thing could rev to 6000 RPMs. (car revving) Etorre saw no value in a heavy car, so he did whatever he could
to cut down on weight. He created a hollow forged
front axle with sealed ends, that drastically cut pounds, while also making handling better. The Type 35 raced well on the road. But it can also scoot in the dirt. Bugatti entered a Type
35 in the Targa Floria. A grueling race around a Sicilian mountain that had a history of destroying cars. People thought that the stripped-down, light-weight 35 was gonna fall apart. - There's no way that that stripped-down
Type 35 is gonna last. (laughing) - Yes, he's a little puny car is gonna slip off the mountain. And we gonna have to bring
him to the graveyard. (laughing) - The Bugatti driver
didn't go to the graveyard. He went to the podium, baby! Bugatti's first place medal, baby! That was in 1925. Bugatti's won the next year
in 1926, 1927, 1928 and 1929. The driver for the last
two years was Albert Divo. - I will remember that guys name, 'cause I think it's probably
gonna come up later. You guys are here every week
too, but you never chime in. - The technology in Bugatti's cars was unlike any other car at the time. Nothing could touch my man. Commercially, the badge had
become a sign of luxury, wealth and power. Just like a Donut shirt, that
you can get at donutmedia.com. With all that came a bit of
criticism from the clientele. But Etorre took it lightly. He believed his cars were pieces of art. When a customer complained that his Bugatti didn't cold-start well, Etorre replied, "You can afford a Type 35, "you can afford a heated garage." And when another customer explained that the brakes didn't work, Etorre clapped back,
"I make my cars to go, "not to stop." (horn sounding) Sales were booming throughout the 20s and Bugatti was making
disgusting amounts of money. But unlike that snake ass Jeff Bezos, he looked after his workers well. The factory expanded and workers were generously compensated. Continued sales of the Type 35 as well as touring cars like the Type 44 and wildly successful Type 40, drove Automobiles e Bugatti to the top. Etorre started getting
more elegant and radical with his designs. He was obsessed with creating
the ultimate vehicle. His Type 41 model, nicknamed
the Royale, with cheese, was a 12.7 liter behemoth,
with ridiculous proportions. It was like the Jessica Rabbit of cars. The 41 was adorned with
an elephant hood ornament, as a tribute to Etorre's
brother, Rembrandt. The first Type 41 sold for
700,000 Francs in 1932. I can't even find a converter to figure out how much
money that would be today. So, hit me up in the comments, if you're a time traveling accountant, and tell me how much
money that would be today. And while you're at it,
hit the like button. Etorre's son, Jean, who had become the head of
the racing and design team at Bugatti, started
developing cars of his own. (engine running) His Type 57 SC Atlantic is still one of the coolest cars ever made. The original design was
to have a magnesium body, which was a hard metal to weld back then. So, the two halves, were riveted together. And that's why, you got that fin. These cars might have been
technically brilliant, but the timing of their release couldn't have been any more dumb. A worldwide economic
depression in the 1930s meant that people were
buying fewer and fewer cars. This was the first sign that
Bugatti's luck was running out. In 1939, Etorre's son, Jean, was testing a Type 57 Tank bodied racer, which just won at Lemans. When he lost control and crashed the accident killed the 30 year old and the messed up part about it, was that he was testing
the car on a closed track but a cyclist had gotten in
through a hole in the fence, Jean swerved to avoid the bike rider, and ran into a tree. Then, in the first months of World War II, the Bugatti factory was destroyed and Etorre lost control of the property, because the Germans were like, "Yo, you need to sell us this property." And he had no say in it. Soon after, his wife Barbara passed away. And in 1947, Etorre Bugatti
became seriously ill with a lung infection. He spent two months in an
American hospital in Paris, and on August 21st 1947, Etorre Arco Isidoro Bugatti passed away. Now Etorre was known as generous, self deprecating perfectionist. He knew every one of his employees names, and chatted with them on
the production floor daily. Some of Bugatti's money problems could have been solved if
he cut workers or their pay, but that was completely out
of the question for Etorre. He rewarded loyalty with loyalty. Etorre's youngest son,
Roland, took over at Bugatti, and even designed a new model in 1951. The 101. But the nail in the
coffin for the company, was a new system the
French adopted called, the tax horsepower system. Urgh. The higher horsepower, the more money the driver
had to cough up in taxes. Urgh. That why we don't have any
cool French cars anymore. So for a company that
made really powerful cars, this was a big problem. The original Bugatti
trademark went under in 1956. Modern day Bugatti started
when an Italian entrepreneur, by the name of Romano Artioli,
bought the brand in 1987. And in 1991, four years
before Post Malone was born, they released the EB 110. It debuted exactly 110 years
after Etorre Bugatti was born. The new car had a very modern look, but maintained the essence
of what Bugatti stood for, in the early 1900s. It had a 60, what? 60 valve? Jesus. It had a 60 valve, quad
turbo charged, V12, making 553 horsepowers,
permanent all wheel drive, active aero, and the
world's first carbon fiber, monocoque chassis on a production car. The EB 110 Super Sport, was better. It was 330 pounds lighter, had 50 more buff horses, and could get up to 221 miles per. (car running) It looked like things
might actually work out, but then, another economic recession hit. A poor decision to buy a Lotus and a few other financial mistakes, led the company to bankruptcy in 1995. The same year that Post Malone was born. A few years later, in 1998,
VW bought the troubled brand for an estimated 50 million dollars. This is a huge deal, because that same year, VW
also bought Lamborghini, Bentley, and Rolls Royce. All to better compete with BMW. Their first production vehicle
to come out was the Veyron. Which was released in 2005, after seven years of development. The car was named after Pierre Veyron, a Lemans winning Bugatti
driver from the 1930s. And it was made in the city that the original Bugatti
factory was in, Molsheim . In a time when car
manufacturers were going green, and boosting fuel efficiency, Bugatti debuted an eight
liter, quad turbo charged, 16 cylinder screaming piece of art. The huge W16 mil, put out 987 horsepower and hit 253 miles per. Which made it the fastest production car in the (beep) world. The brake disks are made from carbon fiber reinforced silicon carbide. Which is just a way cooler
way of saying carbon ceramic. The quad turbos suck in 45,000
liters of air every minute. VW meant to push limits
with this new Bugatti, and push limits, they did. There's some cool
special editions as well. There's a 16.4 Super Sport which has 200 more horsepower
than the stock Veyron and set the world record for fastest street legal production car, at 268 miles per hour. (engine revving) (laughing) That's just irresponsible. Then there's the Black Bess. An homage to the original
Black Bess of the early 1900s and direct ancestor of the Veyron. This thing has real 24 carat gold accents and little drawings of the original Bess on the inside of the door panels. VW's next venture with the
Bugatti badge was the Chiron. Not to be confused with John
Cirone, who works at Donut. The Chiron debuted in
2016 and got its name from the French Grand Prix
winning Bugatti driver, Louis Chiron. The Chiron has a heavily updated version of the Veyron engine. The W16 puts out a
stupid 1479 horsepowers. You like torque? Well it's got 1180 pounds of 'em. And it goes zero to 60 in 2.4 seconds. And it's electronically limited because no tire in the world can handle the theoretical top speed. They even came out with an updated version of the Bugatti Royale, but it never made it
passed the concept phase. Bummer, because it looks really tight, and would look great
parked next to my Golf. Last year Bugatti unveiled
their newest creation. The Divo. - See, I told all you guys that that man's name
would population up again. My dude. The Divo is a 1500
horsepower (beep) robot. Humans are amazing. We make these machines that we
control with all of our limbs that go 300 miles per hour. All four limbs, at one
time, like a dang mech suit. Word on the street is that Bugatti is going to unveil a new
special edition Divo, at the upcoming Monterey car week. I'm not sure what it's gonna be, but 2019 marks the 110th
anniversary of the Bugatti badge. So, I'm guessing, it's
gonna be really powerful, and really cool. (techno music)