Prinetti & Stucchi

Prinetti & Stucchi, later Stucchi & Co., was an Italian maker of sewing machines, bicycles and motorized vehicles, established in Milan in 1883 and owned by the engineers and politicians Augusto Stucchi and Giulio Prinetti. It began manufacturing bicycles in 1892, and Stucchi bicycles won the Giro d'Italia in 1914 and 1919. In 1899 it started making motorized tricycles and quadricycles; its Tipo 1, a motorized tricycle with two De Dion engines and a Rochet-Schneider frame, was designed by Ettore Bugatti, who took part in the 1900 Targa Rignano in a quadricycle. The company was renamed Stucchi & Co. in 1901 when Giulio Prinetti left to become Italian minister of foreign affairs, a reorganisation that also led Bugatti to emigrate to France, where he set up the Bugatti car works. Automobile production stopped in 1906, and in 1907 the Stucchi-Prinetti family founded the electric company Società Generale Elettrica dell'Adamello.