I have seen a lot of pictures of '20 vintage Bugatti racers, are these all original cars or reproductions? If they are reproductions, who made/makes them.
Jason, if you've seen them racing then they are original models or rebodied chassis from original cars or parts. There are or were some kit cars built based on VW pans that looked like the same cars, but easy to tell if you looked closely because of the VW torsion bar front suspension and the tail section was a bit larger to house the engine. Most used Model A Ford wire wheels as they were easy to find and met the scale of the car.
There are a surprising number of vintage Bugattis still around and racing. Just a few years ago they were the featured marque at the Montery Historic Races as I remember and there were quite a few there. Even more racing around Europe.
Bugattikit.jpg
In the new issue of Vintage Motorsports there were a bunch of the in one picture. I wouldn't think there would be that many left and in the USA.
There are probably more early Bugatti type 35s around now than were ever built by the factory. I know that sounds strange, but in classic car circles it's not unusual to build up cars from just a chassis or engine, so some cars were assembled from spares or chassis from other models into type 35s. They are still classified as originals, not kit cars as they use all original drive train pieces or reproduced items to the original designs.
Several years back Audi commissioned a recreation of the famous streamliner cars. They found a genuine type C chassis in Russia I think and had a craftsman build a new body from old photographs. It's a work of art and all the parts are created to the original patterns etc, so it's not considered a kit, rather a sort of clone based on some original parts. That's the story of a lot of early race cars which were lost or wrecked. Many used the same chassis as more mundane sedans etc so a lot of those bodies were removed and recreations of the original type racing bodies were built. There are a lot of Blower Bentley's running around that started life as saloons.
Audi-Auto_Union_Type_C_St_mp4_pic_20688.jpg
In 2007, Watkins Glen SVRA race weekend had Bugatti as the feature marque....must have been on the order of a dozen vintage Bugatti's.
BugattiatWGI1.jpg
Outside Smalley's garage for the "Tech Inspection" re-enactment
BugattiatWGI2.jpg
In the concourse car area......
BugattiatWGI3.jpg
A dozen or so Bugatti's led the opening of Friday's race re-enactment parade.
The nearest you can get to the real thing, type 35 built in Argentina. £125.000 in the UK hard to tell from an actual Type 35.
http://www.classicandperformancecar.com/features/octane_features/215388/bugatti_replica.html
There were quite a few cheapo replicars, the main one being Teal which did the VW engine one and possibly an MGB engined car which at least had the engine in roughly the right place.
Google Bugatti replicas and you'll probably come up with a few more.
Kevin.
I believe that there were some legitimate cars at WGI. Here's a photo of one engine bay.
BugattiatWGI4.jpg
Does this look original?
Bill, the craftsmen you were thinking of is/are Crosthwaithe and Gardner in England, they are responsible for most of the auto union restorations among others , these guys can reverse engineer and build new stuff from parts or even pictures of the subject
these guys are good, the most memorable (to me) Bugatti they did was for Calvin Klein and it was black ! took best of show at
the Meadowbrook concours several years ago.
Dave Craddock
Thanks Dave. I couldn't remember. I had a great article on the building of that car in a copy of Sports Cars and Classics magazine a few years back, but have lost or given away the magazine now. I was amazed at the craftmanship and work involved to recreat a famous race car that had been lost to history during the war.
Isn't that the car Rosemeyer was killed in trying to set a speed record, the car was sensitive to side winds and he lost control and hit a bridge if I remember correctly.
Re the Bugattis, it wasn't uncommon a few years back that a car would go to a "specialist" and two cars would emerge, one with the original body & chassis with "replacement" mechanical parts and the other with the original mechanicals with "Replacement" body and chassis which is why there are so many arguments as to who owns the original car!
Kevin.
In the 60's there was a true Bugattista in L.A., Bunny Phillips, he was the outstanding Bugatti restorer of the time and he was a Bugatti dealer as well, I say the 60's because thats when I read about him he had been around for some time. So I would imagine some of these cars have been restored several times.
The Audi streamliner was restored by Audi I believe, Crosswaithe and Gardner restored the type 37 and 39 cars as well as others including the dual rear wheel hillclimb car of Hans Stuck, the story of how the cars and parts were spirited out of Russia and Poland was very interesting, lets say there was a lot of border guard bribing!
Dave Craddock
The company is well-known for built-up some of the most exclusive as well as some of the fastest, these days the name is possessed by Volkswagen Group, who have revitalized it as a designer of limited making of special sports cars.