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The Online Magazine for Italian and French Classic Car Enthusiasts

bugatti

Villa Erba 2025, Non-Italian

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Christian Troelsfeldt’s 1950 Bugatti Type 101 C by Antem. Of the one prototype and six series Bugatti 101s constructed only one, chassis,101504, carried two-seater coachwork by Antem. Commissioned by Rene Bollore, the second husband of Ettore Bugatti’s widow, chassis 101504 was originally painted dark green with chrome spoke wheels and white wall tires.

Story and photos by Jonathan Sharp

This we covered in two parts last week. This week we continue the event coverage with the non-Italian cars featured at this year’s show at Villa Erba. Villa d’Este Class winners are listed below the gallery.

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A Prescott Primer

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Bugattis enjoy a rare moment of sun. David Hand’s 1925 T39 sits next to the 1924 Brescia T13 of Charles Knill-Jones.

By Jonathan Sharp
From the VeloceToday Archives, 2012

The Cotswolds: bucolic golden-hued thatched cottages, rolling farm land, wheat fields swaying in a warm summer breeze, antique shops, old English country inns selling fine English ales. All this and more, for it is also the home of the Bugatti Owners Club of Great Britain and the famous Prescott Hill climb.

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Classic Santa Fe Concours

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Possibly the most famous car to appear at the Concorso was the Boyle Special that won the Indy 500 in 1939 and 1940. It was a Maserati 8CTF driven by the legendary Wilbur Shaw. As we shall see, some other legends showed up for the event. The car was somewhat reluctant to start but did cooperate to everybody’s great pleasure.

Memories of Cars in Santa Fe, NM. (and elsewhere)

Story and photos by Charley Seavey

Your correspondent lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico for a long time. One of the great things about Santa Fe is that it is an excellent town in which to be a car geek. The premier attraction while I was living there was the Santa Fe Concorso, held from 2010-2016 on the expansive grounds of the Las Campanas Club and Golf Course.

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Photo Gallery: The Quail Motorsports Gathering

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Alfa Romeo 2500 SS Supergioiello by Ghia, 1950. This is my personal call for Best of Show, owned by Jonathan and Wendy Segal. It is reportedly one of four ‘Supergioiello’ Alfa 2500s built by Ghia circa 1950. It is most certainly one of the most attractive designs to come out of Ghia during the Boano years.

Photos by Brandes Elitch

You have read Elitch’s superb reporting of the 2021 Quail at Monterey,

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Discovering a Bugatti Atlantic

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Young Man With Bugatti We couldn’t identify the young man but the Bugatti is the Atlantic S/N 57374. But only Jim Sitz could come up with a location and date of the photo. Read on.

From the VeloceToday Archives, July 2017

In 1949 Strother MacMinn took these photos of the Bugatti Atlantic/Aérolithe (S/N 57374) when owned by Bob Oliver. The photos were supplied by Dale LaFollette at Vintage Motorphoto and published here with the permission of Bob Ames. Below, comments from Jim Sitz.

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Driving Us Bananas: The Brescia Bugatti

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From our Archives, October, 2018

By Vince Johnson and Pete Vack
Photos by Vince Johnson

A Bit on the Brescia

Vince Johnson will detail the ‘Butterfly’ Bugatti below, but first a few interesting facts about Ettore’s most successful model in terms of sales. The Brescia Bugatti was an evolution of Bugatti’s first production car from 1910, the Type 10 and Type 13. During that period, Bugatti model nomenclature was based on the length of the wheelbase, in general, the T 13 being the shortest, and the T23 the longest. But in 1921, after the total domination of an event in Italy, Ettore Bugatti decided to name his most recent model after the race.

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To Paris with Portfolio: Gijsbert-Paul Berk

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I was great a fan of Bugattis. This was one of the reasons why I designed this Coupé de Ville body for a Type 57 chassis. Of course I was inspired by the prewar designs of Jean Bugatti but tried to give the car a more modern appearance. I used the horse- shoe symbol not only as a fake radiator for the cooling intake but also as headlight covers. I did send a photocopy of these drawings to Monsieur Pierre Marco, then the Managing Director of Bugatti. However I never got a reply. [Note that the headlight arrangement bore a striking resemblance to the last Saoutchik to be produced, the Pegaso SIII. Ed.]

By Gijsbert-Paul Berk
Photos and drawings courtesy Author unless otherwise noted

From the Archives, November 2014

Read Part 1

As related in Part 1, I wanted to work as am automotive designer, and became very interested in Bugattis. In fact I had the chance to restore such a car. In 1949 one of my friends discovered in the port of Rotterdam a Bugatti type 40 roadster with a Bordino type or boat tail factory body. [Read more…] about To Paris with Portfolio: Gijsbert-Paul Berk

A Past Recalled: Gijsbert-Paul Berk

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We asked Gijsbert-Paul Berk to tell us about his visits to Saoutchik and Franay in the early 1950s, as mentioned in Peter Larsen’s three volume book on Saoutchik. One question led to another and soon we had a very interesting article about a very special man.

From the Archives, November 2014

Story by Gijsbert-Paul Berk

Thank goodness for Sir Peter Ustinov. The versatile British actor was known to many car buffs of previous generations, even those with little theatrical interests, thanks to his hilarious Riverside recording of the Gibraltar Grand Prix and other records. However only intimates were aware that Ustinov himself was a lifelong car enthusiast with a penchant for classic automobiles and sports cars. [Read more…] about A Past Recalled: Gijsbert-Paul Berk

1925 Bugatti Brescia

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By Vince Johnson and Pete Vack
Photos by Vince Johnson

A Bit on the Brescia

Vince Johnson will detail the ‘Butterfly’ Bugatti below, but first a few interesting facts about Ettore’s most successful model in terms of sales. The Brescia Bugatti was an evolution of Bugatti’s first production car from 1910, the Type 10 and Type 13. During that period, Bugatti model nomenclature was based on the length of the wheelbase, in general, the T 13 being the shortest, and the T23 the longest. But in 1921, after the total domination of an event in Italy, Ettore Bugatti decided to name his most recent model after the race. [Read more…] about 1925 Bugatti Brescia

An Ode to Three Bugattis

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Correspondent and mentor Gijsbert-Paul Berk with his restored Bugatti T40 Grand Sport.

By Pete Vack, Gijsbert-Paul Berk, and Sandy Leith

It was Burt Bacharach/Hal David who wrote the popular song I’ll Never Fall in Love Again. After the last Ferrari I too vowed never to fall in love again, being too old for such nonsense anyway.

But I kept catching the Bugatti virus. It re-occurs every few years and like the plague, eventually it just dissipates, primarily because any Bugatti has been out of our price range for the past 50 years or so. I’d been through a torrid but platonic love affair with the T35, the T55, the T57 and even the Brescia Bugattis, and so it was recently when the charms of the lowly T40 attracted my attention. We then found three interesting T40s with three great stories all in some way related to the cast of characters at VeloceToday. We begin with the Correspondent’s Bugatti….

Correspondent’s Bugatti

Our most senior correspondent, Gijsbert-Paul Berk, once owned and restored a delightful Type 40 Grand Sport and wrote to tell me all about it and sent photos:

Thanks for your photos of that attractive Bugatti Type 40 cabriolet. (see below) They brought tears in my eyes. So here are a few photos of my Type 40. It had a body identical to the one in the 1928 Bugatti advertisement. Someone told me that the man next to the car is Louis Chiron. Who the woman was is not known. [Read more…] about An Ode to Three Bugattis

Chantilly Arts & Elegance Concours

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A special class was dedicated to the racing Bugattis and included this Type 50 that was entered at Le Mans in 1931, seen here during the rally on Saturday. This is the first Bugatti on which Jean Bugatti’s technical influence was very important.

A special class was dedicated to the racing Bugattis and included this Type 50 that was entered at Le Mans in 1931, seen here during the rally on Saturday. This is the first Bugatti on which Jean Bugatti’s technical influence was very important.

Story and Photos by Hugues Vanhoolandt
Click to ENLARGE

The first edition of the Chantilly Arts & Elegance Concours held in 2014 was a great success and it promised not to be an easy task for Peter Auto, who organizes also the Tour Auto and Le Mans Classic, to do better. [Read more…] about Chantilly Arts & Elegance Concours

Gijsbert-Paul Berk Remembers: To Paris With Portfolio

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I was great a fan of Bugattis. This was one of the reasons why I designed this Coupé de Ville body for a Type 57 chassis. Of course I was inspired by the prewar designs of Jean Bugatti but tried to give the car a more modern appearance. I used the horse- shoe symbol not only as a fake radiator for the cooling intake but also as headlight covers. I did send a photocopy of these drawings to Monsieur Pierre Marco, then the Managing Director of Bugatti. However I never got a reply. Note that the headlight arrangement bore a striking resemblance to the last Saoutchik to be produced, the Pegaso SIII. Ed.

By Gijsbert-Paul Berk
Photos and drawings courtesy Author unless otherwise noted

Read Part 1

Off to Paris with Portfolio

As related in Part 1, I wanted to work as am automotive designer, and became very interested in Bugattis. In fact I had the chance to restore such a car. In 1949 one of my friends discovered in the port of Rotterdam a Bugatti type 40 roadster with a Bordino type or boat tail factory body.

The car was used there as a tractor to move freight cars and in a deplorable state. But we bought it and together restored it. A 1928 four-cylinder Chevrolet machine of just over 2 liters had replaced the original 1500 cc engine. Because it functioned very well in the car and we could not find nor afford a comparable Bugatti unit we retained it. But the chassis and body were renewed bolt for bolt. It took us several months.

This did nothing to diminish my desire to become an automotive designer. Having had no luck with local coachbuilders in the Netherlands, I was at a loss until a friend of the family remembered that he knew John (Johan) Sijthoff, scion of a printing and publishing family and – more important in my case – a shareholder and director with Carrosserie Saoutchik in Paris. He organized an introduction for me. [Read more…] about Gijsbert-Paul Berk Remembers: To Paris With Portfolio

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