Bugatti Premieres the "One Night at the Château" Exclusive Treat for Special Customers

Before we go on with the story, I feel I should clarify something: Bugatti is currently under Volkswagen ownership, which is German. But the car-building Bugatti company also started life as a German enterprise. In 1909, young Italian Ettore Bugatti chose the province of Alsace – then in the German Empire – to set up a car factory. He chose Molsheim – to this day, that’s the home of the great Bugatti cars.

Yes, there are other fast cars, luxurious ones, and plenty of brands with incomparable, richer racing histories than Bugatti’s. But Bugatti has something of all of these traits; it proudly rules supreme as the king of the castle. Not just in any court, but Château Saint Jean, in Molsheim, France.

Unlike any other car factory on this planet, the Atelier (French for “workshop”) is not a gigantic hangar filled with robotic assembly lines and county-sized parking lots full of new cars. The tiny Molsheim car plant sits at the heart of a 250-year-old-oak forest that accommodates an ultra-modern automobile plant. A typical sight for the herd of free-roaming fallow deer, the Atelier also welcomes Bugatti customers for a unique experience.

The ideal place to welcome everyone who was anyone with Bugatti in the 30s, Castle Saint Jean has never been available to anyone for an overnight stay. Until now, when a handful of “special guests” received the exceptional favor to enjoy “One Night at the Château.”

“Spending ‘One Night at the Château’ allows us to immerse guests more deeply into the Bugatti brand, past and present, delivering something that many of them desire: an even deeper connection with our history and our eponymous founder. (…) the ‘One Night at the Château’ program could become an important part of Bugatti’s future.” Christophe Piochon, President of Bugatti Automobiles

Far from curious eyes, Château Saint Jean is a 57-acre property, and guests that got the exclusivist overnight stay relished every possible spoil that Ettore Bugatti himself envisioned for his select tight acquaintances. The eldest son of a jewelry and luxury furniture designer with a long artistic lineage running in his blood, the founding father of the car brand bought the castle in 1928 specifically to entertain his most cherished collaborators.

Of course, present-day Bugatti kept tight secrecy upon the identity of the lucky few who enjoyed a night in the old castle and its newer additions. A transparent geodesic dome made for a perfect stargazing spot in the deep darkness of the ancient forest. The main annexes of the facility – Remise Nord and Remise Sud – once served as the castle’s stables, and they bear some reminiscence of those times to this day.

Remise Nord now houses a Type 41 Royale and a Type 35 racecar, and the all-electric Type 56 pays homage to the brand’s century-old engineering brilliance. To dive more profound into the long-gone never-to-be-forgotten atmosphere of the Bugatti automobile, the ‘Night at the Château’ guests enjoyed a one-off drive in a Bugatti Type 51, only anticipating the time travel straight to the absolute performant future of automobiles. This time-shattering experience came delivered by the Chiron Super Sport, the 1,500 hp Bugatti hypercar that gave visitors a modern-day thrill-filled ride.

These types of experiences open the appetite for two things: exquisite cars and exquisite food. The former takes shape in the Remise Sud, where customers can personalize their Bugatti vehicles and admire the engineering work of art that the W16 engine (displayed there) represents. “High-definition screens and bespoke Bugatti ‘Royale’ speakers by TIDAL with diamond diaphragms provide a near-lifelike, all-encompassing audio and visual representation of their future Bugatti car.”

As for the culinary excellence, the privileged Bugatti guest received a lavish welcome in the Château’s parkland with an "exquisite aperitif and three exceptional vintages" from Bugatti’s bespoke Champagne Carbon. Of course, guests can enjoy a pool game in the Orangerie to witness Ettore Bugatti’s attention to detail. Built as the brand’s founder’s sole addition to this estate, the greenhouse was a place for growing fresh greens to always have the best ingredients for his visitors.

Ettore Bugatti was so minutely interested in offering perfection that he designed and fabricated a pasta-making machine (remember he was Italian) and even brought hens to the Château to provide a fresh supply of eggs all year round. Custom EB-engraved cutlery reminded everyone of his passion for consistently offering the best in sophisticated entertainment and automotive foreset.

As fate would have its way with the company, one particular Bugatti car sits in the Orangerie – the Bugatti Baby II, a three-quarter scale fully electric impersonation of Type 35. The BB II is a tribute to the original Bugatti Baby, the half-sized toy-car Type 35 created in 1926 for Ettore’s son Roland. This one-off gained so much popularity among marque enthusiasts that it had a nine-year production run between 1927 and 1936.