Thomas Bscher

Owned by Thomas Bscher: Maserati 300S Fantuzzi Spyder

Thomas Bscher (born April 2, 1952 in Cologne ) is a former German racing driver, banker and from 2003 to 2007 President of Bugatti Automobiles within the Volkswagen Group .

life and career

Thomas Bscher was born as the grandson of the banker Robert Pferdmenges , who had been a partner in the Sal. Oppenheim bank since 1930 . He studied business administration and was personally liable partner at Sal Oppenheim as a representative of the family from 1986 to 1995.

Bscher became known in motorsport as a racing driver when he drove in a McLaren BMW in the mid-1990s with the Dane John Nielsen in the GT series. In 1995, Bscher and Nielsen became the overall winner of the BPR Global GT Series in a McLaren F1 GTR with a BMW engine. At the first run of the 1997 FIA GT Championship season, Bscher achieved third place in the GT1 class on April 13, 1997 at the Hockenheimring .

In the same year he drove a Kremer K8 Spyder and won the Monza 1000 km race with John Nielsen . In 2000 he founded his own racing team "Thomas Bscher Promotion Team", which competed with himself and the drivers Geoff Lees and Jean-Marc Gounon in the 2000 Le Mans 24-hour race on a BMW V12 LMR . Due to a herniated disc in 2000, Thomas Bscher gave up active racing.

While working as a racing driver, he got to know the then BMW boss Bernd Pischetsrieder . Pischetsrieder, meanwhile VW boss, brought Thomas Bscher to the VW Group in 2003 because of his experience as a banker and racing driver, and Bscher took over the position of President at Bugatti. Series production of the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 in the Alsatian plant in Dorlisheim near Molsheim began under the leadership of Bugatti boss Thomas Bscher . At the beginning of 2007, Bscher announced that after the many technical problems of the 1.2 million euro 1001-horsepower car Veyron had been solved, he saw his task as fulfilled and announced his resignation.

Thomas Bscher is married to the concert pianist Inga Fiolia. He has a daughter and a son.

In 2005 he bought the Berlin house at Schlüterstrasse 45 . In 2013 he resigned from the operator of the Hotel Bogota due to rent debts.

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1994	Seikel Motorsport	Porsche 968 Turbo RS	John Nielsen	Lindsay Owen-Jones	failure	accident
1995	West Competition	McLaren F1 GTR	John Nielsen	Jochen Mass	failure	accident
1996	David Price Racing	McLaren F1 GTR	John Nielsen	Peter Kox	Rank 4
1998	Gulf Team Davidoff	McLaren F1 GTR	Rinaldo Capello	Emanuele Pirro	failure	accident
1999	David Price Racing	BMW V12 LM	Steve Soper	Bill Auberlen	Rank 5
2000	Thomas Bscher PhD	BMW V12 LM	Geoff Lees	Jean-Marc Gounon	failure	accident

Sebring results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1999	Price & Bscher	BMW V12 LM	Bill Auberlen	Steve Soper	failure	accident

Web links

Commons : Thomas Bscher  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Thomas Bscher at Racing Sports Cars

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Thomas Bscher: Lord of 1001 HP on handelsblatt.com
2. ↑ Bugatti boss resigns from www.welt.de
3. ^ Die Zeit, July 13, 2013, p. 55.
4. ^ Die Zeit, July 13, 2013, p. 55.