The author of Bugatti in Denmark, driving his type 40 at Prescott in 2019.
By Frank Studstrup
I was born in 1950 and often came along to the family’s bus garage and workshop in the 1950-60s. I must have been kind of taken by the whole atmosphere of all the workshop machinery and maintenance work on the yellow buses. Recalling from my early childhood, some of the buses were Danish built ‘Triangel’, the oldest dating back to 1931 and in the early 1950s set aside to be broken up.
1951, Frank in his family’s soapbox car.
On my father’s side, the family has owned a variety of automobiles since around 1919. My grandfather established a bus-company in 1920, starting with a small bus on a GMC chassis and over the years he developed a public transport service in the city of Aalborg, Denmark. My father was an independent consultant in civil engineering and building, owning many different cars, which he mainly used for their basic purpose: transport.
When coming home from travels, my father sometimes brought a small gift, a Lesney ‘Models of Yesteryear’ veteran car model. I think that these small gems together with a few early veteran car books opened my eyes for the automobile as more than just a means of transport. Among the small car models, especially the blue T 35 Bugatti soon got me ‘bitten by the Bug’ – and it is still on my shelf.
Winning a prize for his Model T restoration.
During the later years of my primary school, I got hold of a totally worn out 1926 Model T Ford, and before long I found myself as an automobile mechanic apprentice at a Fiat automobile dealer and workshop. In the spare time I was allowed workshop room in the family’s bus garage, where I took ‘Tin Lizzie’ to pieces and restored it over the next three years. The old Model T was back on the road again in May 1968, when I got my driver’s license.
In the 1970s I graduated as an engineer in traffic planning, and parallel to my job I occasionally wrote articles for club and association magazines on transport planning and motor historic topics. In this narrative part of my career, I had my first book published in 1995 on the occasion of 75 years of the bus company in Aalborg. Later I wrote articles on Bugatti history and became part of a Nordic team, which in 2014 published the ‘Nordic Bugatti Register’ book.
The type 40 and Jette at Bornholm in 2020.
Now with the book Bugatti in Denmark – motorsport and luxury cars before 1940 I have taken advantage of my time as a retired to dig further into the early Danish Bugatti history.
A longtime dream was fullfilled, when in 2006 my wife Jette and I became the happy owners of a restored 1927 Bugatti type 40. The car had spent most of its time in South Australia, where postwar an 8-cylinder type 38 engine had been installed. This both sporty and practical vintage car has given us much pleasure and opened the doors to a wide world of Bugatti enthusiasm, as well as giving us some exciting travel experiences in international Bugatti meetings and in more local events by the Bugatti Club Denmark.
The Bugatti, the Model T and a Fiat 124 share Frank’s garage.
For 15 years now the Bugatti has had its place in our garage together with the still-going-strong ‘Tin Lizzie’, and a fine 1968 Fiat 124 Spider also with 50+ years in my care. Squeezed in the garage for the last 10 years is Jette’s favorite for comfortable summer travelling, – a well preserved and superbly running 1997 Porsche 986 Boxster.