What Do the Dots and EB Mean in the Bugatti Logo?

The black monogram stands for Ettore Bugatti, who was born in Milan in 1881 and founded the company in 1909 in Molsheim, Alsace, then part of the German Empire. The same initials were used in the name of the EB 110, the car built under Romano Artioli in the 1990s.

Bugatti's official newsroom says the oval with white lettering on a red background came from Ettore himself and that he had already created a similar logo for his earlier employer, Deutz in Cologne. Other websites credit his father, the furniture and jewelry designer Carlo Bugatti. That claim conflicts with the company's own account and is not confirmed here.

Bugatti's press material on its modern badge calls the explanation a legend: the 60 dots symbolize pearls or threads, in a style that fit the Art Nouveau fashion of the time. Art Nouveau is also the world Ettore grew up in, since his father was a well-known Art Nouveau designer. A second, more mechanical reading says the dots echo the way dots were used like splints to create permanent connections in machine parts, a nod to the brand's focus on reliability.

Both readings are interpretation. No surviving statement from Ettore Bugatti says what the dots meant, and the sources used here do not identify who counted out the number 60.

According to Bugatti, the shape comes from cutting a 45 mm cylinder at a 30-degree angle, and the first enameled metal badge went on the radiator of the Type 13, the first official Bugatti, towards the end of 1909. Ettore chose a flat badge over the radiator figures that were common then. The only exception, Bugatti says, is the dancing elephant on the 1926 Type 41 Royale, a tribute to the sculpture of his late brother Rembrandt.

Today's version is made of 970 sterling silver with enamel. The company says it weighs 159 grams and that the maker Poellath, in Bavaria, has produced the modern badges since 2003, starting with the Veyron 16.4. Red is the standard color, and black badges go to very few cars.

Unusually, Bugatti has stated a meaning for the colors. In its newsroom account, red stands for power and passion, white for elegance and nobility, and black for excellence and courage, with the dots on the white border. Treat that as the modern company's reading. It is not evidence of what Ettore intended in 1909.

The archive shows the same layout from 1909 to 2015, with changes to the rim and shading. The 2022 file drops the oval and shows only a black BUGATTI wordmark.