Exploring the Bugatti Factory abandoned for more than 20 years
This is so typical. Last night in Italy, I’m almost convinced to go to bed already, but then something pops into my head out of nowhere… Hey, what if I am somehow close to that abandoned Bugatti factory that I recently added on my Urbex.xlsx sheet? That could… That would be… Wow, no way, it’s less than 100 km away!
“I think there is a big dog staring at us,” is the last thing you want to hear at that moment, but yep, it’s happening.
Sun is setting in no more than three hours and one hour alone takes the driving. I rented a new Fiat 500, but they gave me fucking Panda, so maybe even more… Not a good timing, but at least there wouldn’t be many gawkers — the industrial area around is still pulsing and totally ignoring the decaying dragon over the fence.
The tiny Fiat didn’t like my “drive it like you stole it” way of driving and the dashboard was buzzing on with the information that I exceeded the speed limit. Is this normal in Italy or just some stupid feature from the renting company? Not sure, but we heard that beeping almost all the way down there, heh.
And here we go. We stand in front of the famous Bugatti Automobili Campogalliano, at purpose built factory. Final time 59 minutes. Two dudes are chatting just meters from us, so we have to wait until they unblock the “smooth” way in. The quotation marks are there for a reason, because there is never a smooth way in or out of course. When they’re gone, we decide to use the letters of the logo as a footboards and it all takes less than ten seconds to climb over the wall. That was easy! But you realize almost instantly after you step on the other side that the way back will be much MORE difficult. No boards, no letters, no nothing…
Who cares, that’s something we should be worried about in approximately two hours, not at the begining of our exploration. The only important thing now is that we are here safe and sound. Even the security cameras can’t snitch on us anymore — the factory is abandoned for more than 20 years.
Places like this vibe incredible atmosphere and first 15 minutes is pure adrenalin. There is also a significant portion of hope, because this so far is only half of the success — you have to be able go inside the buildings, right? You wanna see all the untouched treasures in there, whatever what that could be. But always following the basic idea of Urbex…
Take only memories, leave nothing but footprints.
The whole area consists of huge production hall, another hall for testing purposes, base for the employees (dining room, warehouse…) and four floor office building that also includes a showroom. Some say it was one of the most beautiful factories in the nineties, all we know is the civil fastest car of its time was borned here — gem known as a Bugatti EB110. I had model of this car on the shelf when I was a kid and if I looked over my little brothers toys, I’m pretty confident it would still be there. Maybe I should take a look… Anyway, the most famous customer was Michael Schumacher, but you can spot one of them in many parts of the world — for example in Qatar (what a surprise…) or in Mexico. Alain Deloin also owned one.
Reborn of the Bugatti brand in Campogalliano lasted just short five years and they “only” sold lower hundreds of the EB110 beasts. Expectations were higher and the corporation declared insolvency literally over the night in September 1995. Former owner Romano Artioli later reveals that it was Ferrari who played dirty games against them — they supposedly didn’t like the new shiny supersport on the block, moreover just around the corner from Modena. Who knows. But they never managed to reopen the production and the final debt was astronomicaly huge. Even though a lot of things were auctioned in the upcoming months, the “abandoned in a hurry” aura is still all over the place.
While there is not much to see in the main factory hall (just fragments of the production line and some machinery), the office building is a completely different story. You can still see the contemporary posters and 1995 calendars hanging on the walls, the original Bugatti overall is just laid over the chair and drawings of the upcoming models are scattered on the ground literally everywhere. I’m having a serious Oh Wow Moment when I find the hidden model of the entire complex in the waiting room. Untouched! At the reception desk there is still a lot of documents and faxes with the Bugatti logo on them and just one floor above there is a room reserved for the main computer — it looks exactly like in the stories about the very first computers. The largest room was obviously reserved for the CEO Artiolli, but there is nothing interesting left except many documents and some collection of really old mobile phones.
I’m standing in the very center of the main hall and I’m trying to imagine the glorious times when everything was different and buzzing. I do that in every place like this, but here it’s different. I’m sure that 25 years ago you could really see the biggest names of that automotive era, maybe just casually talking about the yesterday’s tests. What a magic place!
I was even able to check out what’s on the roof, but I really didn’t want to draw unwanted attention on me. Plus the sun begins to go down and we take it as a clear sign that we have to move back to the normal world.
We stand in front of the wall where we first started, but something is different. “I think there is a big dog staring at us” is the last thing you want to hear at that moment, but yep, it’s hapening and we are instantly in a hurry. We flee as if we had just robbed the bank, I end with abraded hands and we are shaking at least another ten minutes, but totally worth it. Totally.
DailyMail published the photos and short story about my trip, wow!
