Dating Back Years Of Heritage, Ettore Bugatti’s Favourite Black And Yellow

Bugatti’s motorsport heritage is known to be linked with French Racing Blue, yet, many of its most elegant cars were finished in the founder, Ettore Bugatti’s favourite colour blend, black and yellow.

For true Bugatti connoisseurs, a hyper sports car finished in black and yellow isn’t just a striking incarnation of the brand’s famous duo-tone paintwork, it’s a nod to the founder himself. 

Many of Ettore Bugatti’s own vehicles were finished in the eye-catching livery, and its popularity has endured from the founder, through the Jean Bugatti-designed era of cars and into the modern day.

Famously, Ettore Bugatti’s Type 41 Royale was painted in black and yellow. Around the same time, an example of the Type 40 Roadster was finished in the same colour scheme, as was a Type 44. 

Next, there’s the Type 55, a motorsport-inspired car with the 2.3-liter straight-eight engine from the Type 51 racer that was most sought-after with its Jean Bugatti-designed two-seater Roadster body. 

Outstandingly, still today the most revered of those Roadsters are finished in the timeless Ettore Bugatti favoured combination of black and yellow.

Then, after the Type 55 was introduced in 1934, one of the most elegant Bugatti Roadsters, the Type 57 Grand Raid Roadster Usine were built, and the colours of choice were of course black and yellow.

As time goes by and enters into the modern era of Bugatti, this timeless combination of black and yellow has never been forgotten. 

2014 saw the inception of the Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport Vitesse ‘1-of-1’. It was finished in black with a contrasting yellow accent, yellow detailing on the wheels and ‘EB’ logos.

Along with a complementary interior, the black leather is offset with yellow stitching and a yellow laser-perforated silhouette of the Veyron on the door panels.

Ensuing that, in the Chiron era, the very first car delivered to North America was finished in a striking yellow and bare black carbon combination, including full painted yellow alloy wheels. 

What’s more, when the Chiron Pur Sport was introduced in 2020, the black and yellow combination was reinvented once again for a one-off with a vibrant ‘Jaune Molsheim’ yellow finish.

Said finish is a special shade that pays homage to the original yellow used by Ettore Bugatti, and this colour comes contrasted with exposed turquoise carbon fibre highlights.

Bugatti’s design director, Achim Anscheidt, concluded: “In almost everything we do, we take inspiration from the founding Bugatti family, inventing our own technologies just as Ettore did, and pushing the boundaries of design and elegance just like Jean Bugatti, to create something that is unlike anything else on the road. As Ettore said, ‘If comparable, it is no longer Bugatti’. That is why black and yellow remains such an important combination for us, both as a design team and as a brand. Of course, we always look to reinvent it. Ettore would never be satisfied with tradition for tradition’s sake, but you will forever find the favoured colours of our founder closely associated with the Bugatti brand.”

That said, today, many examples of black and yellow Bugattis are cared for as part of the Schlumpf collection, the largest collection of Bugattis in the world.

Sited in Mulhouse National Automobile Museum, it contains 400 of the world’s rarest and most valuable cars, including over 135 Bugattis, such as two of just six Type 41 Royale ever built.