Lorraine-Dietrich De Dietrich-Bugatti History

At the 1901 Milan International Exhibition, Eugène de Dietrich spotted a gold-medal-winning small four-cylinder car designed by the 19-year-old Ettore Bugatti. He signed the young Italian on the spot — with Bugatti's father Carlo countersigning because Ettore was still a minor — and commissioned a new overhead-valve 24 hp four-cylinder to replace the outgoing Vivinus-derived design.

Between 1902 and 1904 De Dietrich built a succession of chassis designed by Bugatti and sold as 'De Dietrich, Licence Bugatti': the touring Type 3/4 (launched at the Leipzig show in October 1902), the large-displacement racing Type 5/6 with its 12,900 cc twin-block four-cylinder producing roughly 60 hp, and the refined Type 7. Approximately 100 examples of Types 3, 4, and 5 were built across that three-year run.

Bugatti left in 1904 to join Émile Mathis at Strasbourg. His brief tenure nonetheless established De Dietrich's credentials as a serious manufacturer, and the racing derivatives competed prominently in the great city-to-city road races of the era — including the ill-fated 1903 Paris–Madrid.