Photography by Matt Davis
Destinations: The Molsheim Experience
April 1, 2006
If taking one of the world’s finest gastronomic tours is not reason enough to
visit the quaint Alsace region of France, an opportunity to visit Bugatti Automobiles S.A.S.–Volkswagen’s 20-acre acquisition in Molsheim–provides a new
incentive. Ettore Bugatti’s orangerie (left photo) remains in
unrestored condition, and is clearly visible from inside the customer center (center photo), where buyers select their favorite leather and paint combinations
before their custom-colored Veyron is assembled by hand in the atelier (right photo). (Click images to enlarge)
The entirely new Bugatti atelier and restructured 19th-century outlying
buildings were officially completed late last year, when the monolithic gray logistics hall
opened. Of course, VW easily could have built all new Bugattis at its factory in Dresden
or Leipzig, both of which are closer to its Wolfsburg headquarters and more accessible to
the civilized world. But–and VW chairman Ferdinand Piëch will swear to this–such a move
would have placed a curse upon every Veyron 16.4 produced. A proper Bugatti requires the sort
of mojo found only in the soil around Molsheim. (Civic note: The original establishment and
the new one are technically a hairbreadth outside the southern Molsheim town limits, so
they often are legitimately claimed by the small neighboring village of Dorlisheim.)
Besides the gated iron and stone fence running the length of the old estate’s
rue St. Jean property line, other remaining structures with their original patina include
one dark ivy-covered stone archway just inside the front gates, some pieces of the
southern wall, and a particularly curious building called the orangerie.
The now gutted and weather-beaten cement-frame orangerie, commissioned by
Ettore Bugatti to house his vast collection of Mediterranean plants when he purchased the
estate in 1928, had no specific purpose in the renovation plans and was to be renovated–at a cost
of up to $500,000–or else torn down. “We fought hard to convince everyone to just keep
it as a piece of Bugatti heritage,” says Julius Kruta, Bugatti’s head of tradition.
“When Volkswagen purchased the château and estate lands in 2000,” Kruta
continues, “all of the existing buildings were as badly off as the orangerie.” The Germans had
the dilapidated structures dismantled and rebuilt using as much of the original material as
was salvageable.
This new chapter in the Bugatti adventure, costing hundreds of millions of
dollars, started in April 1998 when Volkswagen purchased the rights to the Bugatti name from
Italian entrepreneur Romano Artioli. Manufacturing of the first preproduction Veyrons
finally began in April 2005 in the new 53,000-square-foot atelier designed by Gunter Henn,
the same man who created VW’s Glass Factory (die Gläserne Manufaktur) in Dresden, Germany. There is a small shakedown track out
back of the atelier and tests are sometimes also performed at the nearby Anneau
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While walking the floor of the atelier, I see that things are humming as Bugatti
tries to satisfy the first 40 orders as quickly as possible, the first delivery
having been made late last year to an American customer. At the time of my
visit, total personnel in the assembly area numbers 30 and is about 50-50 German
and Alsatian. The intent is to have nearly 100 percent local Alsatian artisans
doing the work by the end of 2006.
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