Bugatti Wiki - User contributions [en]

My Bugattis by S. Dean

2013-04-17T03:22:24Z

MacyWales: minor edit

Ettore Bugatti was an Italian artist who began in sculpture and ended up making the ultimate automobile of the '20s and '30s. His cars were thorobreds (Bugatti was a horseman and all his cars had the trademark horseshoe shaped radiators), pur sang, as he put it. They dominated the Gran Prix of his era, and it wasn't until the late '60s that Ferrari had finally won as many GP races as Bugatti had.
The cars weren't the fastest or the most powerful, but they had a dominating blend of handling, exceptional brakes and quite enough power. They were also very good-looking.

My father was always looking for things we could do at home (since my mother Molly had polio when I was a year old and didn't 'travel' well; access for the disabled was lousy in those days) and had incredible taste and instincts. In the late 50's, he got interested in cars and acquired some very interesting machinery relatively inexpensively. First came a Type 49 Bugatti built in '32, which we got in the late '50s. This was a drophead coupe, a straight 8 with single overhead cam, double ignition (wiring). On the right, Dad is rounding a bend in a hill climb at French Lick, Indiana in the fall of 1959 with my older brother Bill in the passenger seat..

Wonderful Marchal headlights: they must have drawn 25 amp, and it was like driving a lighthouse down the road with [http://www.learn-esm.co.uk/accommodation.phpIntensive Driving Courses London]. Laughable aiming (the big nut that held them on): when someone came at you, you flipped on the high beams, which went into the trees. The wheels were another visionary engineering feat of Bugatti's: a cast iron drum cast into an aluminum finned wheel. Yes, you can see aluminum fin brake drums from the 60's, but in '32? Another charming feature of these cars were the fitted wooden floorboards. When you wanted to work on anything below them, they simple unclipped and were removable: you didn't need a "creeper", you just removed the seats (one wingnut apiece), rolled up the carpet, removed the floorboards, and there you were.

Then the Type 40 . Lordy, what a lovely car. It was one of two body prototypes for the 57SC (see below). This one was made for Jean Bugatti. As the legend goes, a drunken postman on the bicycle got onto the test track when Jean was testing a Gran Prix car. Jean swerved to avoid him, hit a tree and was killed. This car went up on blocks at the works. We bought it, ex works for $2250 in 12/60, changed the spark plug wires....and nothing else; it just worked. Of course, I was 13 and had to wait 3 years to drive it. It had no vices. It always started, was completely predictable and would do the most delightful slalom drifting turns with opposite lock steering....though the first time it happened was an utter surprise and delight!. 19" wire wheels, with real knock-off hubs (it was my father's great delight to track down a real brass hammer for them). Grey paint, red leather. Oh, and the license plate: plexiglas letters on a black field with the light bulb behind them...a lovely touch. A straight four with a single overhead cam, and the engine has the rare pur sang scraped finish that usually only went on the works GP machines.. Notice that, with the hood up, you could get between the firewall and the dashboard; real easy to work on. Notice that, as in the real machines, the tach gets pride of place in front of the driver....the speedo is over to the side!

These images were done with a 5x7 view camera using Plus-X; these are scanned from contact prints. The background is the old Speed estate in Louisville, KY. They were a fast pass I did for Dad in the early when he sold the T40 (from the then princely sum of $10,000<sigh>). Here are two shots of Dad in the T40; one done with the view camera and a much earlier 35mm shot from 1967 with him at speed with the dogs. My old Anglia 130 from college days is in the background....what a lovely engine and gearbox it had. If Ford had pushed them in the US, the VW Beetle woud've never had a chance!

Funny, the first manual shift cars I ever drove were these right-hand drive crash-box Bugattis. Thirty-seven years later, I'm still double-clutching my down shifts (a properly 'hit' double clutch down shift has a lot of the qualities of a home run hit: pure connection) and driving for first time in England last spring was, of course, quite familiar. Both these cars also had the Italian floor pedal arrangment: clutch-accelerator-brake and the T49 H shift was mirror image flipped so that 1st was on the side towards the driver and the dashboard.

Though I never thought much about it, my father let me work on these cars! That, of course, was part of why he'd gotten them: for the experience, to suck his sons into machinery. He didn't buy things for possession, rather for another facet of a Renaissance-man experience of life. So I adjusted the brakes on the T40; they'd been marginal, but when I finished they worked. Ettore had this wonderful Rube Goldberg lash up that made cable brakes work as well as hydraulics. If you ever see a Bugatti, see if you can get the owner to show you the side-to-side brake balancing yoke; it is a piece of engineering art.

101500 - T 101 Prototype 4 Door Sedan by Europa

2011-12-16T01:02:45Z

MacyWales:

http://www.bugattibuilder.com/wiki/images/T101Proto-1.jpg

http://www.bugattibuilder.com/wiki/images/T101Proto-2.jpg

http://www.bugattibuilder.com/wiki/images/T101Proto-3.jpg

http://www.bugattibuilder.com/wiki/images/T101Proto-4.jpg

http://www.bugattibuilder.com/wiki/images/T101Proto-5.jpg
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Short Bugatti history

2011-11-28T12:00:01Z

MacyWales:

Ettore Bugatti was a builder of things mechanical. In his factory in Molsheim, France, he built boats and aircraft engines and at least one airplane and but his first love was automobiles. He is generally considered an artist, more so than an [http://www.premierrivercruises.com/river-cruise-regions-of-the-world/europe-river-cruiseEuropean river cruises] engineer. This might serve to explain why some of his designs were characterized as "a bit wacky" while others were inspired. He produced two outstanding Grand Prix cars, his Types 35 and 59. His engines were [http://www.diamondlinks.net/link building] works of art, as were a number of his cars. One of his last designs is considered by many to be his best, [http://www.merchantservicesprotectionplan.info/ Merchant Services Protection Plan] the Type 57 sports and sports racing [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankers_Life_and_Casualtybankers life] car.

It was in the realm of body design where he produced his most bizarre creations. If you like modern art you'll probably like his wild ones. The Type 57 sported a 3.3 liter straight eight engine with [http://www.andrewflusche.com/services/fredericksburg-dui-lawyer/Fredericksburg DUI lawyer] double overhead camshafts and hemispherical combustion chambers. The angle between [http://www.ghengisfireworks.co.uk/fireworks] intake and exhaust valves was 90 degrees. The cylinder block and head were cast integrally and bolted to a cast aluminum crankcase/transmission housing. The Type 57S was equipped with a [http://featherranch.com/ stud dogs] Rootes-type positive displacement supercharger. The Type 57S was a potent performer and in a streamlined body christened "The Tank" by the motoring press, it won the Le Mans 24 Hours in 1937 and again in 1939.

The Type 57 was produced in greater quantity than any other Bugatti, an estimated 750 in all. Bugatti offered a variety of body styles, and of course the chassis was made available to independent coach builders. One of the weirdest was an open sports body with fully skirted, steering front fenders. But the one most commonly associated with the Type 57 is the Atlantique coupe. It is hard to describe this one but its most noticeable feature is the very large spot welding seam which runs from the windshield header to the tailend of the body.

(by Pete Hagenbuch)

41121-Lindberg

2011-10-08T03:48:11Z

MacyWales:

Model: Bugatti type 41 Royale Weinberger

Chassis number or original car: [[41121]]

Scale: 1:24

Producer: Lindberg-Entex (USA)/ Revell

Model n°: 6602

Product number: 679:300 (Lindberg), since 1967

Form of delivery: kit

Materials: plastic, rubber

Accuracy level: good

Skill: intermediate

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I have had the experience with the Revell kits that the chrome parts are quite rough; if you can, try to acquire the Lindberg version of this kit. I built one, [http://www.bankerslifeinsurance.com/bankers life] and have one for a spare unbuilt. Building was not a problem at all.

This kit makes a very handsome car, which has an intriguing history. The kit has many parts, of which plenty in chrome. To make a realistic model, the parts should either be de-chromed, or washed, to tune down the chrome a bit.
The original car once has been damaged, and during restauration, some changes have been made. The kit provides the parts to make the version after the change. However, it is not too hard to change this to the more handsome version before the change. just leave out the carborettors, the air horns and use other wheels, and paint the car black with yellow sheerline.
My kit came with the body slightly warped. A test fit proved that this should be solved by installing the firewall. Care must be taken to fit the hood to the car, as even on the boxart the hood did not end up as it should. Careful sanding should improve that.

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http://www.bugattibuilder.com/photo/albums/userpics/10003/normal_DSCN1322.JPG
http://www.bugattibuilder.com/photo/albums/userpics/10003/normal_Revell_Bugatti_Type_41_013.jpg

http://www.bugattibuilder.com/photo/albums/userpics/10003/Revell_Bugatti_Type_41_001.jpg
http://www.bugattibuilder.com/photo/albums/userpics/10003/Revell_Bugatti_Type_41_011.jpg

http://www.bugattibuilder.com/photo/albums/userpics/10012/normal_%2341121-noire.jpg
http://www.bugattibuilder.com/photo/albums/userpics/10012/normal_T41_%2341121-Weinberger.jpg

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Links:

Photo page of scale model on Bugattibuilder.com: [[http://www.bugattibuilder.com/photo/thumbnails.php?album=1137]]

Photo page of original car on Bugattibuilder.com: [[http://www.bugattibuilder.com/photo/thumbnails.php?album=152]]

Photo page of a 1:15 model by Gerald Wingrove: [[http://www.bugattibuilder.com/photo/thumbnails.php?album=255]]