Beschreibung:

1931 BUGATTI TYPE 51 REPLICA COACHWORK: ATLANTIC COUPE BY DUBOS Chassis No. see text Engine No. see text Deep violet with grey leather interior Engine: Roots-supercharged straight eight, twin overhead camshafts operating 16 valves via inverted cups, Zenith 48K triple-diffuser updraft carburetor, Scintilla magneto ignition, 2,262cc, approx. 185bhp at 5,000rpm; Gearbox: four-speed manual; Suspension: tubular front axle on half-elliptic springs, live rear axle on reversed quarter-elliptic springs and Bugatti-type shock absorbers all round; Brakes: fully compensated mechanical system operating on all four wheels. Right hand drive. The Type 51 Bugatti was the final development of the classic and outstandingly successful single-cam Type 35 racing car which had been introduced in 1924. That model had been developed during the later Twenties by the addition of a Bugatti-designed Roots-type supercharger and its original two-litre engine capacity had been increased on the Type 35B which produced substantially more power than its forebear. Its detail cylinder head and valve-gear design was closely influenced by the contemporary Miller racing engine which Bugatti had dissected and closely examined but otherwise the remainder of the engine, and indeed the rest of the car, was still pure Type 35 throughout. Thus a Type 51 was really no more than a twin-camshaft Type 35B. The only other visual differences were the one-piece well-base alloy wheels replacing the earlier detachable-rim design, twin fuel fillers on the tail, the magneto now offset to the left of the dash because it was driven from the exhaust camshaft and the blower relief hole being located lower on the side of the bonnet. Yet the fact that a seven year old racing car design with no more than additional power should prove itself capable of sustaining the run of Grand Prix successes of its immediate predecessor bears remarkable testimony to the soundness of the original layout. For the three years to the conclusion of the 1933 racing season the Type 51 Bugatti was a principal contender for top Grand Prix honours. With works drivers of the calibre of Chiron, Varzi, Williams and others, outright wins were secured during 1931 in the Tunis, Monaco, Morocco, Geneva, French, Belgian and Czechoslovakian Grands Prix, together with a number of lesser victories. Second place was taken in the German GP and 3rd in the Italian GP, whilst Varzi finished 3rd in the Targa Florio after leading most of the way. In 1932, with the Alfa Romeo and Maserati marques increasingly in the ascendant, wins were again secured in the Tunis and Czechoslovakian events and third place again in the Targa Florio, whilst in 1933 Varzi famously beat his great rival Nuvolari's Alfa Romeo at Monaco, other wins being gained at Monza and Dieppe with second place in the Belgian and third in the Spanish Grands Prix. However by the end of the 1933 season the Type 51 was beginning to show its age and being supplanted, first by the Type 54 and then by the Type 59 models. A total of only forty Type 51 Grand Prix Bugatti were produced, and about ten of these were in fact earlier models which the factory had converted to twin-camshaft specification. This particular Type 51 Bugatti was assembled in England in the 1980's for Bob Sutherland. The chassis frame is understood to be a replica produced by American Ray Jones and it was built up correctly in all details into a rolling chassis using an original touring Bugatti front axle with original brakes and wire wheels and a replica gearbox by Peter Shaw who a few years earlier had built the rolling chassis of Bob Sutherland's Type 35 Bugatti Tank. The rear axle has an original centre casing numbered 801 which must have been sourced from a touring model. The car's twin-cam engine was assembled mostly from new parts but entirely to the correct specification by Richard I'Anson of Tula Engineering. However the supercharger, numbered 174, and its gear drive casing are amongst the few