The beginning of a legend called Ettore Bugatti...

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In 1874 in the heyday of the industrial revolution, the company Prinetti e Stucchi was founded in Milan, Italy. They produced various machines but mainly focussed on the new ways of transport. At some point, the bicycle department evolved by starting the production of De Dion licensed tricycles. This is where it all started...

In those years a young man came as an apprentice to the Prinetti factory. Soon he was noticed for his inventive ideas and great mechanical insight. This man, we all got to know years later as one of the true greats of the automobile world. He was called Ettore Bugatti.

In 1899 the newly founded Automobile Club of Italy wrote out a race for motorised vehicles in Reggio Emilia, Italy. Ettore was given the recourses of the Prinetti factory to redesign one of the tricycles to a racing version. He added a second engine to the same frame, together with many other small parts to make this very light large engined monster drivable. As if the then 17-year young Bugatti knew his still to come successes, he baptized the "car" "type 1".

Not only was the "type 1" a mechanical achievement, but the race in Reggio Emilia was gloriously won by Ettore with an average speed of 57km/hour over a distance of 90k! A real victory, as the competitors were not the least ones. Many great names then still unknown raced their own or factory adapted vehicles in 1899.

To the defeat belonged Scipione "prince" the Borghese that 8 years later would win the first Peking to Paris rally. But also Carlo Biscaretti who soon afterward became one of the founders of FIAT and whose name is still linked to the Fiat museum in Turin. Together with his co-founder and grandfather Giovanni Agnelli. The Agnelli family is to this day still involved in Fiat. Besides them was also Michele Lanza who already was building cars under his own name, and last but not least Francesco Guasti whos grandson still owns one of the finest car collections in Italy. All to all great names at that time and greater in retrospective. Every single one of them beaten by a 17-year-old boy that till this date owns the record of most Grand Prix wins and this was the first.

Ettore on the Stucchi and newspaper in which Dunlop and Stucchi report on victory Ettore.

Source: Ettore Bugatti, Bruno Nicolini & Paolo Maggi.

The double engined tricycle had three more outings that year, winning another two and second in the last before it was retired for the "type 2", the first 4 wheeled Bugatti.

The "type 1" has never left the region. Due to pure luck, it survived two world wars and ended up in the collection of Mario Regini. Until the beginning of 2018, when it was acquired by two Bugatti aficionados. The "type 1" Bugatti will be shown "for display only" at stand 6-312 at Techno Classica in Essen. Really worth having a look!

In partnership with Fine Automobiles.

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