Hello Frank.

Conways "Grand Prix Bugatti" was published in 1969, 1983 and 2004 ; the latter edition by the Bugatti Trust. It was updated by David Sewell who believes that, despite the claims of Butti and Marguiles, your car is NOT the Cholmondeley car.

When you paid Laurent's invoice for inspecting your car did you ask him exactly what tests he applied to establish the authenticity of frame 22 ?

Isn't the fact that Mr. Trepsat is posting questions about his car already an indication that he is curious to learn about the history of the car?

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Vive la Marque !!

Have I missed something? Did Jean inspect the car already?
Not only the stampings of the chassis plate but also the plate itself is not correct.
By means of Optical Emission Spectroscopy it is easy to analyse the steel composition in a non destructive manner so it is not necessary to cut a piece of the chassis. Interpretation of the results is another matter though.
Bugwrench

The person who was responsible for excluding the Trepsat car from the list of surviving Grand Prix Bugattis listed in The Bugatti Trust's publication is a man whose integrity and knowledge have NEVER, to my knowledge, been questioned.

Before this debate goes any further perhaps Mr. Brouwer would like to ask Jaap Horst for permission to reproduce the contents of correspondence dated 26-2-2003 from LD and published in 2005 in "Bugatti Legends" (pages 72-73). As far as I know none of the gentlemen named have refuted the contents of the letter or attempted to take legal action against Jaap. I understand that the booklet has now been reprinted unchanged.

I would also like to mention an incident that took place at Shelsley Walsh over twenty years ago. Dan Marguiles and I were competing at the annual VSCC event and were "stranded" at the top of the hill while an accident was dealt with. We fell into discussion about Bugatti fakes and he gave me a chapter and verse exposition of some of the ploys of various members of the London motor trade and the clever engineers who supplied them. Dan was quite amused by the way greedy speculators would swallow the cock-and-bull stories about the "provenance" of the cars they were buying and would subsequently themselves embroider these stories to give them more authenticity.

I will ask Jaap if he wants to do a copy/paste. Far more efficient then retyping a story.

Your Hon. Secr.

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Vive la Marque !!

As the quote has not appeared, and for the benefit of those who do not have a copy of "Bugatti Legends", can I be allowed to say that the posting by LD on 26-2-2003 seems to question the integrity of two of the key players involved in the story of the Cholmondeley type 35.

I am in no position to confirm or deny LD's assertations but the content of the posting indicates a considerable knowledge of the European Bugatti scene.

If the Bugatti Register.com is going to develop any authority as an International Register it is essential that claims relating to recently discovered cars are properly investigated.

Would you, Jaap, please allow me to copy the key paragraph from the posting ?

I have owned two built-up Grand Prix Bugattis (one from Wragg and the other from Chrisford) and, although I would have loved to own an original genuine car, I have no objection to people building well engineered cars provided their provenance is not mis-represented.

That is the whole point on which the Bugatti community rotates:

-replicas or built-ups are in general accepted and admired, as long as their origin is not misrepresented.

-to get a new car rolling on the road legally, one has to be "creative" with origin. Which conflicts with the previous point.

About the www.BugattiRegister.com, there is a seperate thread in WIKI discussions, which I opened but seemingly no-one bothered to place any input.

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Vive la Marque !!

The comment on page 74/75 of my Bugatti Legends book, is printed below. And no, I never received any comment whatsoever about it. One further question: Are there any other 4913's around??

26-2-2003, LD, a comment on the Argentinian firm Pur Sang:
I have followed since the begining the efforts of Anadon and Mauro to produce not
only spare parts but whole cars in Argentina.

They were not the first to do that (Delliere, Novo, Butty, Esseric, Rondoni, Faucon,
Dutton, Jones, Hucke) have made many of them, starting first with missing
elements of real chassis and ending by the fabrication of chassis. That's the point
when refabrications became real fakes. Everybody should have the opportunity to
build fakes but not selling them as original cars. English car builders are well
known for their skills in building up stories (esp. Butty) and selling cars as true (to
Japan for instance), others don't tell at first but admit the refabrication after being
asked (Dellière, Rondoni).

In that instance, I feel the argentinians as very honest.
As was Eric Koux also with his Atlantic. The man to blame is the seller and Club
registers are a must to avoid cheating or being led to thoughts of cheating. It's now
a huge amount of money separating original cars and refab.
At retromobile 2003, a 35B where only the chassis was 4913, everything else on it
was Molsheim spare from other cars reached 850'000 euro (I have many infos and
pictures) against Anadon's car at 180'000-200'000 euro.
As for the quality of work, the Argentinians started with a mix of original spares
and many new spares, going to badly fitting new parts where Patrick Tap invested
75 - 70'000 euro in an Argentinian to get the car driving well. But now they
improved??? was the answer of mauro. I don't use personally argentinian spares, I
machine parts myself. they fit.

The Cadillac and T41 project are all right: English enthusiasts have made specials
since the 30'ties with airplane engines.

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Bugwrench is absolutely right !

Furthermore, all known replica frames were (at least to my knowledge) produced with a different method as Molsheim had their frames manufactured. These two processes leave distinguishable features on the bare steel frame, which contribute to the verification, whether a frame might be of Molsheim origin or not.
In order to do so, the paint on the frame should - at least in parts - be removed. But I do consider this a non-destructive analysis as well ...

Again and to support bugwrench´s comments, even if you have a spectral analysis made of the frame, how do you interpret this result in comparison ? You need more reference data than this single sample to make a conclusion.

Also, there is no need to cut out samples from (original) components. Spectral material analysis was already an industry tool by the late 1920s !

Last but not least, I would like to encourage Mr. Trepsat to post a decent close-up picture of the frame number, as this might already hint at the frame´s provenance.

The UK firm Non-Destructive Inspection Services Ltd. have the necessary information to give a definitive confirmation of the originality of a frame.

An original frame was stamped with the A H symbol of Aciérie Holtzer which would be difficult to forge. A reputable expert would be able to recognise an attempted forgery.

I think the same applies to the numbers stamped upside-down or the rearmost cross-member.

Rubbish ! Keith Butti would tell you if you asked that the chassis frames were made by the same company that made Amilcar frames.The crows foot in a circle mark is easy to fake and indeed has even been cut out from old Amilcar frames and used to add "interest" to new frames.The nice people near Oxford can indeed find evidence of "compression memory" to identify erased numbers on metal surfaces.They did so perfectly with Roger Hanower's T43 sump,with interesting results.However they cannot say with any great certainty whether a frame is prewar or not.As I said before any old repairs or welding render test results uncertain.

Rubbish Mr. Lazarus!! Just take a couple of random samples using the proper equipment and any "old repairs" (how many do you guess there are on a real frame??) or welding can easily be detected BEFORE you take the samples from each spot!
Bugwrench

Repairs can usually be seen for what they are yes.However I am totally unconvinced that prewar steel can be detected with a 100% certainty.We will have to agree to differ my friend.

To my best knowledge, pre-war steel is higher in carbon content, and thus also stiffer (and more brittle).

This at least goes for steel used for ships.

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It is the additives used to make steel flow that change the finish of steel and therefore make it possible to see "pre additive" and later "with additive".Generally [and i use the term carefully] prewar steel has lumps of carbon which show as black dots in a surface photograph.Postwar steel has black streaks [ still carbon ] Some prewar foundries achieved better results without additives.There are many variables.