Bugatti promotes 27-year-old former intern to head of special projects

Bugatti has put the way forward for its one- and few-off projects at the disposal of a former intern. 27-year-old Nils Sajonz has been promoted to go of special projects to oversee the introduction of upcoming models.

Sajonz joined in france they carmaker being an intern in 2021, and that he wrote his university thesis on the race car developed for autonomous racing. While the prototype never hit the track, executives hired him as a designer after he graduated. He led to projects such as the La Voiture Noire, the Centodieci, the Divo, and also the Bolide.

Working in Bugatti’s design department requires a thorough understanding of its heritage, which includes obscure planet and championship-winning single-seaters. Many of the unbuilt projects that Autoblog discovered earlier in 2021 were visibly inspired through the company’s past. Sajonz is still in the 20s, so he views design through a different lens than some of his older colleagues, but he noted he aims to bring new ideas to they without diluting the important thing styling cues which have defined the majority of Bugatti’s cars since its inception over 100 years ago.

“The heritage from the Bugatti brand is not lost on me,” he explained in a statement. “It is crucial that future special projects retain the design identity of the brand, which is simply unrivaled.”

Interestingly, he shed light on why the recently-introduced Bolide track car has X-shaped back lights. It’s a styling cue that echoes the Bell X-1, that was the very first plane to break the sound barrier, but it’s additionally a mention of tape that race car drivers accustomed to put over their headlights to guarantee the glass didn’t spread on the tarmac if it broke.

Sajonz works directly under Achim Anscheidt, the company’s head of design. We don’t much concerning the future special projects he referenced, but we shouldn’t need to wait too long to discover what his team holds.