Bugatti Type 46
Chassis Number : 46570
Original Engine Number : 310
Current Engine Number : 49 (ex 46146)
This is the car carrying the well-known Saoutchik body that first graced the Buccialli bought by George Roure in 1932, and like many I was delighted when this glamorous one-off was reunited with its original coachwork and then restored during the 1990s. However, with the arrival of Klein Saunier & Jansen Type 46 work a slightly darker picture has now emerged.
I was completely unaware of the fact that 46570 was delivered in April 1933 to the very same George Roure, quite possibly as a chassis only. Sometime during his ownership of these two cars, that beautiful body was removed from the Buccialli and placed onto the Bugatti. When M. Roure sold 46570 in 1939 it was carrying this body, quite probably the first coachwork worn by this chassis.
It stayed like this up to and including its sale to one Walter Weimer from Washington Pennsylvania in 1970. How this coachwork was removed from 46570 and placed back on the Buccialli remains shrouded in mystery, the authors mentioning the following two unsubstantiated rumours : 1) The Bugatti disappeared only to be found later sans body. 2) Weimer sold the body and received a blank check for the creation of a replica body which was never built. The eventual fate of the chassis remains unsure, it may have been sold to David Holzman or, God forbid, been disassembled. In any event, this Bugatti has not resurfaced. I would like to quote the final sentence of 46570s chapter verbatim :"Thus the price for creating one Buccialli has probably been the destruction of a Bugatti."
I would very much like to hear what the rest of the contributors make of this. As for myself, I suppose I cannot fault the owners of the Buccialli for wanting to reunite it with the body it carried originally, if rather briefly. I suppose a body-less T46 chassis can always be fitted with another example of the coachbuilder's art. On the other hand, surely no-one would dare destroy a Bugatti just to get hold of its body, would they?
I wish I had a scanner, there is a lovely photo of 46570, still wearing the Saoutchik body in the T46 book. The photo available on Wiki does not do it justice.
Kind Regards
Johan Buchner
