Michael ShafferCar and Driver
Starting a 90-year-old Bugatti Type 51 requires a complicated process. First, you need to pressurize the fuel tank, using the pesticide nozzle-style handle on the left edge of the engine’s rotary console, just above the passenger’s left knee. You then have to open the fuel supply line with a small lever and inject some fuel into the engine with a round pump knob with a handle on the other side of the instrument panel. You then need to open the hood to add some oil to the supercharger, perhaps so that it doesn’t burn out on its own when spinning as fast as it does now. You then close the hood and place the covered metal gear lever — on the outside right side of the vehicle — in the neutral position. Then you press the start button, which sounds like a silverware drawer the size of Lusitania was maraca’d by the Greek god Polyphemus. You tune into idle with another dial until the delicate white-faced Jaeger hands indicate the car is spinning at about 700 rpm. Then the car stops, and you have to repeat the process.
Did I mention this all happens wearing a vintage-style light blue Bugatti cosplay with a waistband like an acid-washed denim relaxation suit? Luckily, no leather helmets or silly goggles are required.
Michael ShafferCar and Driver
Michael ShafferCar and Driver
Fortunately, in this difficult handling, this Bugatti – part of Bugatti’s own collection – is equipped with Luigi Galli. He is an expert on heritage and certification for the top French/German/Italian brand and is a Wikipedia for people when it comes to classic Molsheim whips. Indispensable without youth, Luigi also cannot be patient.
The Model 51 was developed in the late 1920s as a successor to the Model 35, the most winning model in Bugatti’s racing cars. Though it does have a few key updates to that adorable monster’s tiny straight eight engine — like the 2.3-liter displacement, twin cam design, and aforementioned supercharger — that allow it to produce what Luigi said was “more than 150 horsepower and driving at over 200 km/h” (124 mph), state-sponsored teams from the rising Fascist Axis powers in Germany and Italy passed it on the track.
Still, it’s a proper race car. A fact I discovered after squeezing my rather narrow ego into the extremely narrow driver’s seat and squeezing my feet in the wide straw legroom. The area is well worth describing, as the trio of metal pedals occupying it look like they’ve fallen out of some surreal kinetic sculpture. The clutch looks like a tiny vertical racing flag, the brakes look like a towering art deco champagne flute (although one has a screw in the dregs), and the gas is just two rolling wheels. dangling from a long rod. Why? Luigi said: “Bugattis is a family of artists.
Michael ShafferCar and Driver
The first gear is down to the left, like on my 1978 Porsche 928. But this is not without dogleg, dog. The second is right on it. “That’s all you need to know,” Luigi said. Although this Type 51 – originally owned by a Czech gentleman, then lived in Japan before repatriating to Alsace in 2002 – is said to be road legal, I will only drive the car. this six or seven figure monument around the grounds of the historic Bugatti castle, adjacent to which is the company blacksmith where it builds Chiron and Centodiecis, and I don’t need to go so fast. (I managed to sneak into the third car in the back straight, towards the security hut with the door.)
Michael ShafferCar and Driver
Lithe Direct, Honest, Unexpected
Despite the complicated start-up process, the Type 51 feels casually familiar. The wood-rimmed aluminum steering wheel is light and precise in its communication — perhaps a result of the larger aluminum wheels and wider tyres, another upgrade from the Model 35. The gear lever, despite its odd styling , but clicks its pins correctly (reducing the necessary sharpening, which Luigi shrugs, is not redundant). The unassisted brakes require some lap but do their job with ease. And the engine pulls with breathless fervor, partly due to the car’s 1600-pound weight. Oddly enough, it reminds me of a 1970s Japanese sports car – like an early Datsun 240Z or Mazda RX-7: direct, mechanical, honest, powerful, precise, playful , surprise. Not brutally fast, by today’s standards, but certainly fast.
My steering wheel is pretty short, but when I hit the kill button and don’t control myself (and remove Luigi) to back out of the ribbed leather driver’s seat, I realize that the comparison isn’t so strange. The Type 51 was the F1 driver of its day, having won the Monaco Grand Prix, and therefore one of the most complex cars on the market. It was decades ahead of its time in technology and capabilities, and thus could take the short cut across the space-time continuum and deliver the driving experience that would bring Japan’s next generation of monomaniacal engineering to fruition. Okay.
Michael ShafferCar and Driver
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