Beschreibung:

Colour: Blue Cylinders: 8; 2,262cc Gears: 4 + reverse Power: 120bhp (approximately) Produced: 1927-32 Production: 160 (including Type 43A) By the early 1930s Ettore Bugatti had established an unrivalled reputation for building cars with outstanding performance on road or track; the world’s greatest racing drivers enjoying countless successes using the Molsheim factory’s products and often choosing them for their everyday transport. His earlier efforts notwithstanding, the foundation of Bugatti’s not inconsiderable repute was his family of eight-cylinder cars, the first of which – the Type 30 – appeared in 1922. The Type 30 shared its chassis, axles and gearbox with the later four-cylinder Type 13 Brescia model and was powered by an inline eight displacing 1,991cc. Developments of this superb engine, with its single overhead camshaft and three valves per cylinder, would go on to power the Type 35 Grand Prix car, the Type 38 tourer and Type 43 sports car. Introduced in 1927, the Type 43 was, in essence, a road-going version of Bugatti’s most successful Grand Prix racing car, the Type 35. The Type 43 used the 2,262cc engine, complete with Roots supercharger, introduced on the Type 35B, which was installed in a new chassis similar to that of the Grand Prix racer. Type 35 wheels were used, together with the larger radiator and brakes also found in the Type 38. Not surprisingly, considering its Grand Prix derivation, the Type 43 proved immensely successful in sports car racing, being campaigned by the factory and a host of private owners. According to the factory records chassis number ‘43303’, fitted with engine number ‘102’ and factory-built Grand Sport coachwork, was produced in March 1929 and invoiced on 18th February 1930. However its engine was presumably found to be faulty because its number ‘102’ was later deleted, engine number ‘130’ substituted and its invoice date revised to 23rd December 1930. It was invoiced on that date for the sum of 58,566 French francs to Bugatti’s Swiss agency, Bucar SA, of Zurich with delivery scheduled for January 1931. (Engine number ‘102’ was eventually fitted to Type 43 chassis number ‘43305’ which was not delivered until September 1933, well over four years after Type 43 production had ended with chassis number ‘43160’ in April 1929). In the absence of any surviving Bucar records it cannot be determined who was the car’s first owner. Although in Zurich, Bucar also supplied cars to clients in countries other than Switzerland, notably in Eastern Europe where there were few agencies but also to Holland and Belgium. Indeed, the car may have been invoiced to Bucar of Zurich but delivered elsewhere, there being no known record of it ever having been in Switzerland. The next that is known of the car is that it came to Holland (if it was not already there) in 1934 and was first owned there by Jan Willem Rens, of Amsterdam, who had purchased it on 2nd May 1935 from the local Bugatti agent, Albatros, a firm belonging to Hendricus Van Ramshorst. In the event, Rens never paid for the car; he had a considerable amount of work done by Albatros, which likewise was not paid for. Rens retained the car for some three years while accumulating a considerable debt at the Bugatti agency. The Type 43 was then bought from Albatros on 10th March 1939 by Ir Bernard Cramer, of Wapenveld, his Hillman being taken in part exchange. It came back to Albatros after the war and, registered ‘G-274’, was raced at Zandvoort by Van Ramshorst. The car displays this same number in two photographs taken at the Albatros establishment in the 1950s, one in a listing of Dutch Bugatti agencies in the 2005 Register of Bugattis in the Netherlands and Belgium, the other in Barrie Price’s Type 57 book. Postwar the car was acquired via Albatros by Dutch Bugatti enthusiast Guillaume Prick, of Maastricht on 16th June 1951, prior to which its chassis had been shortened to make it into a pure two-seater. It is listed in Prick’s ownership in the 1