Romano Artioli

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Romano Artioli (right) visits the Museo Nicolis automobile museum in Villafranca di Verona (2009).

Romano Artioli (born December 5, 1932 in Moglia ) is an Italian entrepreneur and former owner of the automobile manufacturers Bugatti Automobili and Lotus .

Artioli was born in Moglia , in the Italian province of Mantua , and grew up in Bolzano , where in the 1980s he operated one of the largest Ferrari dealerships in the world, with which he served the northern Italian and southern German markets. He also imported Japanese cars and owned Autoexpò , the first Italian importer of Suzuki in 1982 .

He owned a large collection of French Bugatti vehicles and was encouraged by Ferruccio Lamborghini and Paolo Stanzani to set up Bugatti International , a holding company that acquired the Bugatti branding rights in 1987 . Artioli became CEO of Bugatti Automobili SpA , which built the Bugatti EB110 from 1991 to 1995 . In 1993 his wife Renata Kettmeir founded the Bolzano- based company Ettore Bugatti (Ettore is the first name of the Bugatti founder ), a luxury goods manufacturer that also uses the Bugatti "EB" logo. Artioli's stake ended in September 1995 when Bugatti Automobili SpA went bankrupt before the company was finally taken over by Volkswagen in April 1998 .

In August 1993, Artioli bought Lotus from General Motors and became chairman of the board before resigning in October 1996 and selling 80% of Lotus to Proton and its major shareholder Yahaya Ahmad to offset his bankruptcy losses with Bugatti. Until 1998 he worked as Head of Special Projects at Lotus.

His daughter Elena Artioli (* 1970) is a politician for the South Tyrolean People's Party and in the South Tyrolean regional association of Lega Nord .

The Lotus Elise was named after Romano Artioli's granddaughter Elisa Artioli.

Web links

Commons : Romano Artioli  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.veloce.it/storie/bigwednesday-romano-artioli-e-la-sua-bugatti-14510
  2. ↑ Paolo Artemi, Bugatti, la fabbrica di sogni in Corriere della Sera (December 28, 1993)
  3. ↑ See Automobile Quarterly, Volume 46, Issue 2 (2006)
  4. ↑ Maurizio Caldero, Buon compleanno Suzuki: da 25 anni anche in Italia in Repubblica (7 June 2007).
  5. ^ John Tagliabue, Hard Times for a Dream Car's Descendant , New York Times (November 23, 1995)
  6. ↑ http://www.sandsmuseum.com/cars/elise/information/press/press/press1996/reuter.html
  7. ↑ elenaartioli.com ( Memento from October 11, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Artioli, Romano
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian entrepreneur and former owner of the Bugatti and Lotus automakers
DATE OF BIRTH December 5, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Moglia