Bugatti Parades Lineage Of French Racing Blue Masterpieces

We have to admit, we would take a Bugatti in any color but the trademark blue is as proper as Rosso to Ferrari. Bugatti is a legendary company that has made significant contributions to the performance cars of yesteryear and the hypercars of today. Known for clinching many top speed records during its long reign, Bugatti would be the first to reach over 300 mph yet still develop incredible design and craftsmanship as seen on the Bugatti Bolide.

The strong heritage of this French company that resides in Molsheim has been encapsulated in a display Bugatti calls ‘La Vie en Bleu’ which is a phrase translated into English as ‘the life in blue.’ But not just any blue, a trademark hue that Bugatti calls French Racing Blue.

“French Racing Blue means passion, it means motorsport pedigree and it means patriotism,” says Achim Anscheidt, Design Director of Bugatti. “Early French racing cars, including many of the all-conquering Bugatti Type 35 models, wore a vibrant shade of blue instantly recognizable to crowds as they roared past at more than 100 mph.”

The spirit of French engineering and design today certainly included much of the parent company Volkswagen Auto Group’s capabilities as well. Of course, Bugatti has famously teamed up with Croatian EV hypercar company Rimac for the next chapter in the company’s storied history. But the famous blue and the two-tone paint on most Bugattis is an important trait for every car they produce.

“The duo-tone application became very popular on Touring and racecars, where the vibrant blue paired with a light turquoise blue became the identifying trademark of the Le Mans-winning Type 57 Tanks – a predecessor of the Duotone identity that is still part of Bugatti’s Design DNA,” says Anscheidt. “So tightly connected were the Bugattis and the shades of blue that over time, ‘French Racing Blue’ would informally become known as ‘Bugatti Blue'”.

While legend claims that the inspiration for the blue came from Ettore Bugatti’s wife Barbara who was often smoking Gauloises cigarettes from a similar color packaging – how very French to have inspiration from smoking. The Volkswagen ownership in the 2000s wanted to experiment with many different blue shades. After hundreds of hours of experimenting in warmer and cooler tones, the video above shows exactly what that color can do to any generation of Bugatti. But full disclosure, some of these masterpieces are so striking that they can be delivered in any color of the spectrum.