People
Bugatti Head of Interior Design, 2015–19; La Voiture Noire contributor
The record
French automotive designer appointed Bugatti’s Head of Interior Design in 2015, with responsibility for product design and as Achim Anscheidt’s main deputy. He contributed to Bugatti’s one-off La Voiture Noire, presented at Geneva in 2019.
Etienne Salomé was born in Paris on 20 September 1980. His 2016 catalogue records a BTS in industrial design at ENSAAMA in 2003; Bugatti’s 2015 announcement records an M.A. in Vehicle Design from the Royal College of Art, London, in 2005. His own site and ABC News list earlier positions at Renault, Mazda and Kia.
Bugatti’s 10 April 2015 announcement said that Salomé had supported Bugatti Design through a London automotive design consultancy since 2007. It then named him Head of Interior Design, with responsibility for product design and as Design Director Achim Anscheidt’s main deputy. In 2015 he was quoted as Head of Interior Design in the Vision Gran Turismo release; his 2016 catalogue lists its interior and that of the Chiron.
La Voiture Noire was unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show in March 2019. Bugatti’s launch release captions Salomé as Deputy Design Director and quotes him on its carbon-fibre body; ABC News reported that he conceived its concept. Bugatti’s 2021 account says the idea for the Atlantic homage had belonged to Anscheidt for more than twenty years, so the car should not be credited to Salomé alone.
Salomé’s site says that he founded a Berlin design studio in 2019. Motor1 reported in October 2019 that he had left Bugatti, and Magneto described him as an ex-Bugatti designer in November 2021. Car Design News identified him in 2024 as interior designer and collaborator on the Nilu; he wrote in 2025 that La Voiture Noire was his last Bugatti project.
Salomé’s site displays the line “design is finished when there is nothing left to take out.” In a 2025 essay, he wrote that a perfect design is ready when there is nothing left to take out. Bugatti’s 2019 release quotes a differently worded statement about working until nothing remained to improve.
In 2019, he told ABC News, “Drawing is my life. This is how I communicate with my team.” In Classic Driver’s 2018 interview he said, “I express myself with sketches — it’s my way of communicating.”
The stations
The house
Credited through Bugatti.
In the register
The files above are the register's own record of this name. The people index holds everyone the register credits.
In their words
“We worked long and hard on this design until was nothing that we could improve. For us, the coupé represents the perfect form with a perfect finish.”
Etienne Salomé · Bugatti Newsroom, 2019
