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Details
The ex-Marquis de Casa Maury/Count Louis Zborowski/George Duller/Wolf Barnato
+1922 BUGATTI TYPE 29/30 FRENCH GRAND PRIX AND 1923 INDIANAPOLIS CAR
Chassis No. 4004
Engine No. 5, ex-Chassis No. 4006
Dark blue with red leather upholstery
Engine: straight eight, 60mm x 88mm, single overhead camshaft operating 24 valves via fingers, twin Zenith 35mm carburetors, Bosch magneto ignition, 1,991cc., c100bhp at 5,000rpm; Clutch: Bugatti wet multi-plate; Gearbox: separate four-speed and reverse unit with right-hand change; Suspension: beam front axle on semi-elliptic springs, live rear axle on reversed quarter-elliptic springs, Bugatti friction shock absorbers, wire road wheels with 4.50 x 21 tires; Brakes: hydraulic front drum brakes, mechanical rears.
Following the resounding success of his 1500cc cars which secured the first four places in the most important voiturette race of the 1921 season at Brescia, Ettore Bugatti decided that the time had come for him to consider competing in the Grands Prix, then as now the pinnacle of European motor racing. Accordingly he set about the design of an entirely new model which was destined to become his first eight cylinder design to enter production and the forerunner of the wide range of racing and sports Bugattis, most notably the Type 35 Grand Prix model and the Grand Sport Type 43, which were introduced over the following decade.
The Type 29 Bugatti engine was designed initially in 1500cc form, but its capacity was soon increased to two litres to match the new Grand Prix regulations which were to come into force at the start of the 1922 season. A batch of five chassis frames was prepared which strictly were designated Type 22 on account of their 2.4 meter wheelbases, but they featured new cross-members and were in effect shortened versions of the subsequent 2.85 meter wheelbase standard Type 30 production frames.
These first chassis were fitted with newly designed front and rear axles and a new steering box, but retained initially the same gearbox as was used on the 1500cc four cylinder models. The front axle was equipped with hydraulic front brakes, a novelty at the time, while the rear axle retained cable-operated brakes, the drums of which were of much larger diameter, and the radiator was an enlarged version of that of the concurrent 16 valve model.
As with most of the chassis features, the engine too was of an entirely new design, a straight eight with its crankshaft running in three large ball-races and having bronze-bearings in the connecting rods, all mounted, for the one and only time in a Bugatti engine, in a one-piece barrel crankcase. The twin four cylinder blocks featured fixed heads with two spark plugs and three vertical valves per cylinder, two small inlets and one large exhaust. The valves were actuated via finger-type rockers from a single overhead camshaft contained within a rectangular aluminum cambox mounted on top of the engine and driven by shafts and bevel gears from the nose of the crankshaft.
Twin ignition was provided by a pair of Bosch magnetos mounted in a cradle attached to the firewall and driven from the rear of the camshaft, while carburation was supplied by a pair of 35mm Zenith side-draught units. The oil pump was mounted low, an improvement on the Brescia model, and driven from a worm gear on the front of the crankshaft, and a brass water pump was driven from a cross-shaft taking its drive from the vertical camshaft drive. The usual Bugatti 'bunch-of-four-bananas' exhaust manifolds were duplicated to cope with the engine's eight exhaust ports. Likewise the clutch was of the standard Bugatti wet multi-plate design contained within the flywheel but with an increased number of plates.
The first four chassis produced were allocated the numbers 4001 - 4004 inclusive, the first of a new series of chassis numbers intended to distinguish these new eight cylinder models from their contemporary four cylinder brethren. These four cars were entered as a factory team for the 1922 French Grand Prix which was to be held on 16th July around a triangular road circuit near Strasbourg, conveniently adjacent to Bugatti's Molsheim factory.
Initially the cars were equipped with bolster-tank racing bodies similar to those of the racing Brescias, but shortly before the race they were replaced with far more streamlined coachwork, being of circular cross-section throughout from the cowled radiator to the pointed tail through the center of which the exhaust was discharged. Little wonder that these bodies were immediately likened to cigars!
In the race itself the Bugattis faced strong opposition, in particular from the Fiat and Sunbeam teams, while Count Louis Zborowski was driving one of the 1500cc Aston Martin twin-cam cars which he had personally financed. The race was held over a distance of 500 miles which proved too much for most of the 18-car field, only four running at the fall of the flag, three of which were Bugattis. The race was easily won by the sole surviving Fiat, another of which had crashed two laps from the finish but had still covered more distance than the third Bugatti. Thus, although denied a victory in their debut Grand Prix, the Bugattis had accounted well for themselves, particularly in respect of their reliability.
Only one other Grand Prix was held in 1922, the Italian at the newly completed purpose-built Monza track near Milan, where the same four Bugattis were entered. However following practice three of the cars were withdrawn, allegedly because they were undergeared for the fast new circuit, but the one which did race performed well, its driver Pierre de Viscaya harrying the leading Fiat during the early laps before settling down after a lengthy pit stop delay for plugs to finish third.
Some time after the Italian Grand Prix at Monza the Argentinian Martin de Alzaga Unzue arranged through his close friend Pierre de Viscaya for Bugatti to supply him with three new racing Bugattis to compete in the following year's Indianapolis '500' for which the regulations also stipulated engine capacities of two litres, i.e. 122 cu. in. The three cars in question were chassis nos. 4014 - 4016 with engine nos. 16 - 18, and were fitted with single ignition. Special off-set single-seater bodies were designed by the French aeroplane designer Bechereau and executed by the Parisian coachbuilders Lavocat & Marsaud.
News of these Indianapolis Bugattis was reported in the motoring press early in 1923 by which time two of the four 1922 Strasbourg cars had already been sold. As a result two racing drivers, Prince de Cystria and Count Louis Zborowski, decided to purchase the two remaining cars and have them similarly prepared for that year's Indianapolis race.
The race was held as usual on May 30th and the Bugattis performed well enough in practice, achieving speeds in excess of 110 mph around the flat-out banked track. But in the race itself, where such speeds had to be maintained continuously, their poor engine lubrication system caused all but one to fall by the wayside with bearing failures. Ironically, Alzaga had specifically ordered engines with roller bearings but Bugatti had failed to honor his request.
It is believed that chassis no. 4004, with engine no. 4 and rear axle no. 4, was driven in the 1922 French Grand Prix at Strasbourg by Mones Maury, the Marquis de Casa Maury, who was placed fifth in the final results. The car was invoiced to Count Zborowski on 26th March 1923, registered for road use in his name at Canterbury with the number FN 5615 on 5th April 1923 and raced at Indianapolis where he retired on the 41st lap with bearing failure. He brought the car back to England where he raced it successfully in short-distance races at Brooklands where he won his first race with a best lap at 107.57mph around the bumpy banking, and despite being re-handicapped would have won a second had he not mistakenly continued around the banking instead of entering the finishing straight on his last lap!
Zborowski had a large collection of racing cars, including an example of the Miller that had so impressed him at Indianapolis that he ordered one in which he contested the 1923 Italian Grand Prix. Accordingly the Bugatti became surplus to his requirements so he sold it in April or May 1924 to the famous jockey and fellow Brooklands racing driver George Duller who, on 28th May 1924, successfully attacked Class B records in the car for distances from half a mile to ten miles, all set at speeds in excess of 105mph. At a later meeting he raised the car's fastest recorded lap to a speed of 108.98mph.
Wolf Barnato acquired the car for the 1925 season and continued to exercise it at Brooklands and elsewhere, achieving a best lap at 106.19mph. At the end of the season he sold the car to R.V. (Raymond) Fontes, a cousin of Luis Fontes, who used the car principally for sand racing, notably at Southport where he secured several victories over the next two years, but it then remained unused until reappearing in 1930, driven again by Fontes and on occasion by his friend Charles Fish. By this time its Indianapolis bodywork had been extensively modified, and the car was then laid up in storage for the next seven years.
In 1937 it reappeared fitted with touring coachwork in the ownership of a Cambridge under-graduate who unfortunately crashed the car with fatal results. The car next turned up in 1948 owned by a man named Claister who repaired the damaged car before selling it to John Horridge who completed its mechanical restoration and fitted a new pointed tail body. He competed in it occasionally at Prescott in the early Fifties before selling it to Geoffrey Cooke in 1955. By this time some parts of the car's original engine including its crankcase had been replaced with the corresponding parts from a Type 38, chassis no. 38142.
Some ten years later the car was acquired by Hamish Moffatt who fully recognized its historical significance and set about returning it to its original mechanical condition. To that end he was successful in obtaining a correct engine from O.A. 'Bunny' Phillips, the doyen of American Bugattistes, for fitment to the car. This engine no. 5, ex-chassis no. 4006, was the fifth of the first batch of cars produced (chassis no. 4006 being the first production Type 30 model), and was taken from the car in which Phillips as a young man had reputedly achieved a speed of 128 mph on Muroc Dry Lake in 1929, and remains to this day the sole surviving example of an Indianapolis Bugatti engine.
The car was purchased in 1972 by Uwe Hucke who over the following two decades progressively restored the car mechanically to a high standard and as far as was possible to the correct specification, and then had made an accurate copy of its original Indianapolis bodywork, copied faithfully from the many surviving photographs of these cars.
As a result the car now looks and performs in all respects exactly as it did in its heyday, and as the only survivor of the team of five Bugattis that raced at Indianapolis almost 80 years ago, is truly a unique and historic racing car. The cambox and a number of other engine components are numbered '4' suggesting that it was perhaps only the crankcase and possibly the crankshaft that were changed by Horridge or a previous owner. Likewise the one other major identifiable numbered component, the rear axle casing, is numbered '4' on top of each half-casing, confirming that it is original to this car, while the 16 valve model gearbox is numbered '862' but no number appears on the front axle. Of necessity the engine is fitted with single-plug cylinder blocks and therefore only one magneto is currently fitted. A final delightful touch is the car's original English front number-plate FN 5615 dating from 1923.
This is truly a historically important Bugatti.
+1922 BUGATTI TYPE 29/30 FRENCH GRAND PRIX AND 1923 INDIANAPOLIS CAR
Chassis No. 4004
Engine No. 5, ex-Chassis No. 4006
Dark blue with red leather upholstery
Engine: straight eight, 60mm x 88mm, single overhead camshaft operating 24 valves via fingers, twin Zenith 35mm carburetors, Bosch magneto ignition, 1,991cc., c100bhp at 5,000rpm; Clutch: Bugatti wet multi-plate; Gearbox: separate four-speed and reverse unit with right-hand change; Suspension: beam front axle on semi-elliptic springs, live rear axle on reversed quarter-elliptic springs, Bugatti friction shock absorbers, wire road wheels with 4.50 x 21 tires; Brakes: hydraulic front drum brakes, mechanical rears.
Following the resounding success of his 1500cc cars which secured the first four places in the most important voiturette race of the 1921 season at Brescia, Ettore Bugatti decided that the time had come for him to consider competing in the Grands Prix, then as now the pinnacle of European motor racing. Accordingly he set about the design of an entirely new model which was destined to become his first eight cylinder design to enter production and the forerunner of the wide range of racing and sports Bugattis, most notably the Type 35 Grand Prix model and the Grand Sport Type 43, which were introduced over the following decade.
The Type 29 Bugatti engine was designed initially in 1500cc form, but its capacity was soon increased to two litres to match the new Grand Prix regulations which were to come into force at the start of the 1922 season. A batch of five chassis frames was prepared which strictly were designated Type 22 on account of their 2.4 meter wheelbases, but they featured new cross-members and were in effect shortened versions of the subsequent 2.85 meter wheelbase standard Type 30 production frames.
These first chassis were fitted with newly designed front and rear axles and a new steering box, but retained initially the same gearbox as was used on the 1500cc four cylinder models. The front axle was equipped with hydraulic front brakes, a novelty at the time, while the rear axle retained cable-operated brakes, the drums of which were of much larger diameter, and the radiator was an enlarged version of that of the concurrent 16 valve model.
As with most of the chassis features, the engine too was of an entirely new design, a straight eight with its crankshaft running in three large ball-races and having bronze-bearings in the connecting rods, all mounted, for the one and only time in a Bugatti engine, in a one-piece barrel crankcase. The twin four cylinder blocks featured fixed heads with two spark plugs and three vertical valves per cylinder, two small inlets and one large exhaust. The valves were actuated via finger-type rockers from a single overhead camshaft contained within a rectangular aluminum cambox mounted on top of the engine and driven by shafts and bevel gears from the nose of the crankshaft.
Twin ignition was provided by a pair of Bosch magnetos mounted in a cradle attached to the firewall and driven from the rear of the camshaft, while carburation was supplied by a pair of 35mm Zenith side-draught units. The oil pump was mounted low, an improvement on the Brescia model, and driven from a worm gear on the front of the crankshaft, and a brass water pump was driven from a cross-shaft taking its drive from the vertical camshaft drive. The usual Bugatti 'bunch-of-four-bananas' exhaust manifolds were duplicated to cope with the engine's eight exhaust ports. Likewise the clutch was of the standard Bugatti wet multi-plate design contained within the flywheel but with an increased number of plates.
The first four chassis produced were allocated the numbers 4001 - 4004 inclusive, the first of a new series of chassis numbers intended to distinguish these new eight cylinder models from their contemporary four cylinder brethren. These four cars were entered as a factory team for the 1922 French Grand Prix which was to be held on 16th July around a triangular road circuit near Strasbourg, conveniently adjacent to Bugatti's Molsheim factory.
Initially the cars were equipped with bolster-tank racing bodies similar to those of the racing Brescias, but shortly before the race they were replaced with far more streamlined coachwork, being of circular cross-section throughout from the cowled radiator to the pointed tail through the center of which the exhaust was discharged. Little wonder that these bodies were immediately likened to cigars!
In the race itself the Bugattis faced strong opposition, in particular from the Fiat and Sunbeam teams, while Count Louis Zborowski was driving one of the 1500cc Aston Martin twin-cam cars which he had personally financed. The race was held over a distance of 500 miles which proved too much for most of the 18-car field, only four running at the fall of the flag, three of which were Bugattis. The race was easily won by the sole surviving Fiat, another of which had crashed two laps from the finish but had still covered more distance than the third Bugatti. Thus, although denied a victory in their debut Grand Prix, the Bugattis had accounted well for themselves, particularly in respect of their reliability.
Only one other Grand Prix was held in 1922, the Italian at the newly completed purpose-built Monza track near Milan, where the same four Bugattis were entered. However following practice three of the cars were withdrawn, allegedly because they were undergeared for the fast new circuit, but the one which did race performed well, its driver Pierre de Viscaya harrying the leading Fiat during the early laps before settling down after a lengthy pit stop delay for plugs to finish third.
Some time after the Italian Grand Prix at Monza the Argentinian Martin de Alzaga Unzue arranged through his close friend Pierre de Viscaya for Bugatti to supply him with three new racing Bugattis to compete in the following year's Indianapolis '500' for which the regulations also stipulated engine capacities of two litres, i.e. 122 cu. in. The three cars in question were chassis nos. 4014 - 4016 with engine nos. 16 - 18, and were fitted with single ignition. Special off-set single-seater bodies were designed by the French aeroplane designer Bechereau and executed by the Parisian coachbuilders Lavocat & Marsaud.
News of these Indianapolis Bugattis was reported in the motoring press early in 1923 by which time two of the four 1922 Strasbourg cars had already been sold. As a result two racing drivers, Prince de Cystria and Count Louis Zborowski, decided to purchase the two remaining cars and have them similarly prepared for that year's Indianapolis race.
The race was held as usual on May 30th and the Bugattis performed well enough in practice, achieving speeds in excess of 110 mph around the flat-out banked track. But in the race itself, where such speeds had to be maintained continuously, their poor engine lubrication system caused all but one to fall by the wayside with bearing failures. Ironically, Alzaga had specifically ordered engines with roller bearings but Bugatti had failed to honor his request.
It is believed that chassis no. 4004, with engine no. 4 and rear axle no. 4, was driven in the 1922 French Grand Prix at Strasbourg by Mones Maury, the Marquis de Casa Maury, who was placed fifth in the final results. The car was invoiced to Count Zborowski on 26th March 1923, registered for road use in his name at Canterbury with the number FN 5615 on 5th April 1923 and raced at Indianapolis where he retired on the 41st lap with bearing failure. He brought the car back to England where he raced it successfully in short-distance races at Brooklands where he won his first race with a best lap at 107.57mph around the bumpy banking, and despite being re-handicapped would have won a second had he not mistakenly continued around the banking instead of entering the finishing straight on his last lap!
Zborowski had a large collection of racing cars, including an example of the Miller that had so impressed him at Indianapolis that he ordered one in which he contested the 1923 Italian Grand Prix. Accordingly the Bugatti became surplus to his requirements so he sold it in April or May 1924 to the famous jockey and fellow Brooklands racing driver George Duller who, on 28th May 1924, successfully attacked Class B records in the car for distances from half a mile to ten miles, all set at speeds in excess of 105mph. At a later meeting he raised the car's fastest recorded lap to a speed of 108.98mph.
Wolf Barnato acquired the car for the 1925 season and continued to exercise it at Brooklands and elsewhere, achieving a best lap at 106.19mph. At the end of the season he sold the car to R.V. (Raymond) Fontes, a cousin of Luis Fontes, who used the car principally for sand racing, notably at Southport where he secured several victories over the next two years, but it then remained unused until reappearing in 1930, driven again by Fontes and on occasion by his friend Charles Fish. By this time its Indianapolis bodywork had been extensively modified, and the car was then laid up in storage for the next seven years.
In 1937 it reappeared fitted with touring coachwork in the ownership of a Cambridge under-graduate who unfortunately crashed the car with fatal results. The car next turned up in 1948 owned by a man named Claister who repaired the damaged car before selling it to John Horridge who completed its mechanical restoration and fitted a new pointed tail body. He competed in it occasionally at Prescott in the early Fifties before selling it to Geoffrey Cooke in 1955. By this time some parts of the car's original engine including its crankcase had been replaced with the corresponding parts from a Type 38, chassis no. 38142.
Some ten years later the car was acquired by Hamish Moffatt who fully recognized its historical significance and set about returning it to its original mechanical condition. To that end he was successful in obtaining a correct engine from O.A. 'Bunny' Phillips, the doyen of American Bugattistes, for fitment to the car. This engine no. 5, ex-chassis no. 4006, was the fifth of the first batch of cars produced (chassis no. 4006 being the first production Type 30 model), and was taken from the car in which Phillips as a young man had reputedly achieved a speed of 128 mph on Muroc Dry Lake in 1929, and remains to this day the sole surviving example of an Indianapolis Bugatti engine.
The car was purchased in 1972 by Uwe Hucke who over the following two decades progressively restored the car mechanically to a high standard and as far as was possible to the correct specification, and then had made an accurate copy of its original Indianapolis bodywork, copied faithfully from the many surviving photographs of these cars.
As a result the car now looks and performs in all respects exactly as it did in its heyday, and as the only survivor of the team of five Bugattis that raced at Indianapolis almost 80 years ago, is truly a unique and historic racing car. The cambox and a number of other engine components are numbered '4' suggesting that it was perhaps only the crankcase and possibly the crankshaft that were changed by Horridge or a previous owner. Likewise the one other major identifiable numbered component, the rear axle casing, is numbered '4' on top of each half-casing, confirming that it is original to this car, while the 16 valve model gearbox is numbered '862' but no number appears on the front axle. Of necessity the engine is fitted with single-plug cylinder blocks and therefore only one magneto is currently fitted. A final delightful touch is the car's original English front number-plate FN 5615 dating from 1923.
This is truly a historically important Bugatti.
Special notice
Customs Duty (2.5%) is payable on the final bid price. Please note however that, if the purchased lot is subseqently exported within certain procedures, the Customs Duty is refundable to the exporter.