Bugatti Bulletin Editor

On 13/01/2021 at 04:47, Not-a-number said:

Im pretty sure, from what I've seen of other chassis (and what Pur Sang do), that they would have used a lot of heat and a lot of guys with big hammers. Thats just way too hard work for one person though!

 

Its 4mm!  

Bugatti chassis-rails were produced by a couple of different manufacturers, and stamped-out by giant presses in the big steel-works operating in France/Germany in the interWar era. Because of the excessive overall length of the un-worked longeron pattern piece, each was arrayed diagonally across the width of the steel sheets that the patterns were stamped from. This had an additional benefit, in that the side-to-side "grain" of the sheet steel was, for each longeron, cut "on the bias" (in dress-maker's terms) which meant that it was much more agreeable to the 90 degree folding along its edges, without cracking and failure. Ettore Bugatti was a bit of tight-arse, and he wasn't so fussed about who made his chassis-rails, or what they were made from, so long as he could get a bunch of them made for a good price. As a result, there are interesting variations in the thicknesses and composition of steel detected in authentic Bugatti chassis-rails arising from different periods and models and suppliers, through the 1920s and 30s. It is useful to note, however, that none of it involved blokes bashing away with big hammers. This was, after all, the era of Krups, and BIG engineering!

Hi Peter;

Your project was brought to my notice by a fellow member of Bugatti Club Australia, where I'm Editor of the Bugatti Bulletin, a twice-yearly journal which is distributed world-wide, having been published since 1960s. It's one of the most highly-regarded single-marque historical car journals around, and actively seeks to capture NZ Bugatti activity as well as whatever happens in Australia.

Fair to say, I'm pretty-much gob-smacked by what you've been doing, and I've spent hours looking through your posts, and those of the many followers who have been tracking and responding to your project. I would love to devote a significant section of our next edition to coverage of your project and the processes you have been pushing through, and I was wondering (a) if this would be agreeable to you, and (b) if you'd be prepared to co-operate with an interview for the Bugatti Bulletin? The latter need not be a "live" interview necessarily, as I could send through a list of questions for you to respond to... I understand that you are in a high-pressure professional situation, and that you'd prefer to be working on your T59 project rather than waiting for a bloody phone call from some dick in Australia...

So, yeah, please let me know if you would like to proceed with the above, in some form. I respect that you've been doing this on the down-low, somewhat, but I figure that if the wider Bugatti community gets wind of this extraordinary project, you may find a lot of support that you had not previously anticipated. And if it takes a Village to raise a child, it takes a Community of Artisans to create a Bugatti!

Kudos to you and your immense talent.

Cheers,

Michael Anderson (editor@bugatticlubaustralia.com.au)

Hi there Cuzzies!

Maybe I'm a bit of an old stick here, but there you go.

In my garage I have a Bugatti T49 undergoing a reconstruction, from a pile of bits that emerged when Uwe Huecke ran a broom through his workshop around 1980. This is a long, slow, and immensely educational project. There's also a low-mileage 2CV Citroen "Dolly", being one of the very last to emerge from the Levallois Paris factory in the 1970s, which I purchased in Wellington around 1995. Also, there's a very intact and entirely delightful 1929 Bugatti T44 tourer, which I am curating for my old Dad, as his eyesight isn't the best. And there's also the one and only 1936 Chrysler Airflow C11 Limousine still in operation, with 62k original miles, original paintwork and interior, a "survivor"car, which drives like a leopard tank.

As editor of the Bugatti Bulletin (the Australasian journal for members of Bugatti Club Australia and any other interested readers), I'm continually canvassing for interesting technological developments that impact upon restoration/rebuilding of pre-War cars, as well as any local happenings that may have involved old Bugattis getting dusted-off. If you see or hear of anything that you think might be of interest, please tag me in!

Far too many of the best local engineers and rebuilding experts here in Australia are ex-pat Kiwis. I spent some years lecturing in the Design School at Wellington Polytechnic, and I was awestruck by the native talent shown by so many young people in New Zealand. There must be something in the water there...

Cheers, Michael Anderson