Has anyone ever seen a drawing relating to a four valve version of the 50 B III "Cork" type engine ? I was given a copy along with 200 others the day before yesterday. Fascinating.This is of course a Bronze casting which along with 7 others would have been screwed onto the cylinder liners.Was this intended for the Airplane ?

very interesting! Hucke/Kruta write:
each of the eight individual bronze cast cylinder heads could be dismantled indiviually!

A 4 valve layout for the T50B engine is something I never heard of. If it would be for an Aero engine, I doubt it. The T67 was a much more logical choice (much larger and more powerful) than a T50B.

You state that you received 200 drawings? All for the same engine?

Of course the T68 also had a bronze head (though for 4 cilinders), is this more or less a similar layout?

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Nothing to do with T68.I have 220 drawings only one for T50B III as shown.The famous engines of the second world war used four valves per cylinder to reduce valve weight.So not so silly for an aircraft although there is no place for the second spark plug that would sensibly be required for an engine for use in the air.Amongst the documents which came with the drawings is a list of the T251 engines already built [ 3 ] and also details of engine number 4 which was in progress at the end.On the 3rd of november 1955 the Bugatti drawing office sent a full set of drawings for the T35 crankshaft to "Atelier O" [ the development department ] Engine number 4 was to have roller bearings on the crankshaft. There is revealed more new information in these 220 drawings and 30 letters than has been discovered in the 60 years since the T251 was built.Engine number 1 was all aluminium,number 2 was magnesium,number 3 was magnesium,and number 4 was to be all aluminium.It seems likely that test engines were made in aluminium,and race engines in magnesium.The engine swop before the Rheims race [which led to the abandonment due to badly assembled throttle linkage ] was no doubt to get the race engine into Trintignants prefered car.Colombos handwritten reports on the testing at Entzheim are a revelation.De Silva Ramos,Rosier,Etancelin,Trintignant and also Roland Bugatti all drove the prototype on the 22 march 1956.Handling in the bends was considered excellent.The rough figure of eight circuit was 5.1 KMs long.Best lap time 1.46 secs.

Bugatti history is full of stories and sometimes unclear information. Of course there were no computers and most information was hand written. The odd mistake happens and can live on for years.

I heard of a T251 engine with T35 crankshaft, doing a 5km lap in 1.46 seconds!

Now seriously: A really nice find. There must be piles of documentation that did not make it to the now known archives (Bugatti sas, The Trust) as well as parts. Not everyone is aware of the historical value (at least for us Bugatti-nuts) and things get discarded.

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Vive la Marque !!

Would some clever person like to work out the average speed of the T251 from this data ? 5.1 KMs in 1.46 minutes.This was on a figure of 8 circuit.

173,2 km/h on average

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Vive la Marque !!

Not bad given the nature of the circuit.Here are some photos of a very unusual Bugatti drawing which I have explained elsewhere on the site.