Dear Friends

Recently I received an e-mail from a gentleman called Frank Trepsat, a member of the French Bugatti Club and owner of the Cholmondeley T35, 4394. Mr. Trepsat purchased the car in England about 10 years ago and it has since had a restoration by Rondini.

I hereby post 3 of the photos of 4394 provided by Mr. Trepsat (and put on the server by Herman - Thanks!) and invite the experts to share any and all information about this most historic T35. Am I correct in believing that very few early T35 survive?






(For the rest of the photos please see the server)

I hope this thread develops into the same wonderful journey of discovery as the posts on Andrew and Claire's Bugattis.

Kind Regards
Johan Buchner

Just received a brief update from Mr. Trepsat, he bought 4394 in London in 1990.

Johan

Dear Johan:

All you really need to know about (4394)...which is how the British Bugatti Register called it...is that its origins date back to the infamous Keith Butti.

Cheers,

CK

Thanks Sandy, I did see the entry in the 1996 Register, but I assumed it was a fake. I also assumed Mr. Trepsat's car to be the real 4394 - Memoirs of a Bugatti Hunter features 4394 and I was under the impression that the author only included surviving T35s.

Perhaps Mr. Trepsat could provide a bit more information about his car ; frame number and major component numbers for instance. What did Rondini discover when he restored her? What historical documentation was provided with 4394 when Mr. Trepsat bought her? Perhaps even more importantly, how does Mr. Trepsat view his car - original, restored from incomplete or a recreation incorporating original components?

In any event, I have a feeling this thread is not going to be a happy one. But I'm still very curious though, perhaps Sandy can shed a little more light? Unless this is one of those "sensitive" cars which should never be discussed in public, of course. Whatever the truth, an early T35, regardless of provenance, is still a thing of great beauty.

Kind Regards
Johan Buchner

Dear Mr Buchner,
I read with interest the comment of Sandy, or CK.
Here are some more information about 4394:

-When I bought it from Mr Butti , he told me that the car had been the property of Dan Margulies , as you can see on the British register
-After beginning the restoration he went into bankruptcy and informed about his bad reputation I took the car to France
-Laurent Rondoni did restore it and you will find attached his comments about what he found
-In his book Mr Raffaelli speaks about surviving cars and he does not quote recent owners ,by discretion as he tells in his introduction
-As you wil see in a letter sent to me by David Sewell the car had been seen by Hugh Conway.
-I consider it as a restored one, as described by Laurent Rondoni whose expertise cannot be denied.
-Enclosed you will find copies of interesting letters ( I will send a fourth one laterbecause three is the maximum)
I would be more than happy to have your visit or the visit of Sandy if you happen to be near Lyon .
With my best regards

Frank Trepsat

Dear Mr Buchner,
as promised here is an expertise for my insurance made by Maurice Sauzay, co author with Hugh Conway of the Bugatti Magnum book.
I hope to see you in Lyon some day
Frank Trepsat

Dear Johan and Frank:
I have never seen "(4394)" so I really cannot comment further with any authority. I find it interesting to note that the car was purchased from Butti when the 1990 British Bugatti Register said it was owned by Dan Margulies with Butti as a prior owner. Does this mean Butti owned it twice? Why would Margulies buy it from Butti and then sell it back to him? Do we know who Butti bought it from? If it was actually found in a scrapyard, I'm sure we would all like to see those "as found" photographs which would surely exist for such a fantastic discovery.
I was told many years ago that the car was on frame no. 22 and that it had gearbox no. 29 and rear axle no. 21 (I hope I don't have those numbers reversed as they are off the top of my head.) I included them in my GP frame and component number list for many years, but when I updated it last year, David Sewell told me I should delete them as the car was a replica. I assumed he had seen the car and made this determination from personal observation. Certainly, his 1990 letter attached above is hardly confirmation of anything.
I would be delighted to learn that the car is chassis 4394, but nothing I have seen above confirms it.
Best,
Sandy

Thank you for this lucid reasoning Sandy. My own knowledge of T35s is way too limited to weigh in on this argument, but perhaps Mr. Trepsat can tell us whether he was told by the vendor that the car he was buying was indeed 4394? Surely if someone sells a T35 claiming it to be 4394 and it turns out to be a replica then that is an act of fraud?

But thanks again Sandy for shedding light on this conundrum. And Mr. Trepsat if you were indeed "done in" by the seller, please accept my deepest sympathy. And good luck with redressing this crime, there are way too many crooks in the Bugatti world as things stands - if you can reduce their number, even by one, you will have done a very good thing.

Respect
Johan Buchner

Dearr Buchner and Sandy,
I understand your concern about Butti's cars.
It came back to him, because he had made a deal with Dan Margulies:he would exchange 4394 against another Bugatti.So the car has been the property of Dan Margulies for a while , but because Margulies did not give the other car ,a tribunal gave it back to Butti; this what I remember.
The car was advertised as Cholmondeley 4394.
Sandy is right concerning the numbers and here are the pictures attached: The car has the right numbers.
Among the experts who actually SAW the car :Rondoni, Sauzay, Hugh Conway (who probably saw it before restoration) nobody speaks of a fake , and I have other experts thinking it is the true one.Af riend of mine who is Expert for the french custom and who wrote a book on the Bugatti 35 Grand Prix de Lyon , does not suggest any abnomaly
Why would Raffaelli woul quote a non existing car ?
Anyway, again I suggest that if any one of you comes to France I will be very pleased to meet you
Sincerely

Frank Trepsat

dear bugatti friends !

why are people discussing the origins of a car, which nobody of the "so called" ( sorry about this term)
authorities had seen in reality?? only because: "Mr. X. said, Mr. Y. concerned, M.`s opinion is.....
and it is not only the BOC who sometimes change his mind about cars or act strange, when they leave the "only real"country for bugattis, england ( remember the protests at prescott about the buyings of
fritz schlumpf..., at a time when bugattis still were scrapped in england).
another example is the VCC ( veteran car club) with it`s "god-like" dating comitee. the ex Garrett Benz Victoria was dated at 1892 for many decades, but when auctioned and going to germany, they dated it back to 1896.....

so, let`s enjoy the great cars and not "discuss èm ton death"

regards
mike

Dear Mike:
We are only on the first (or maybe second with this post) page of discussing the car called 4394 or (4394), as the case may be. "Discuss 'em to death" doesn't happen until we reach page 6 or 7. If there are other BB.com watchers or contributors who know something about this car, I don't think we should be discouraging them from chiming in, if they have something to add.
Regards,
Sandy

hello sandy !

quite right you are. the thing I wanted to show up, that there are many cars, that had been declared "original" in the 8o`s by conway and others bugatti authorities, so buyers bet on their opinion and bought these cars. decades later , these cars were suddenley classified as " mostly new" or "fakes".
this is the disapointing thing to me, for many owners now are blamed that teir beloved car turns
out to be not a real thing , only ,because another " authority" has another opinion. who else in the world
would say one word arainst that of conway some 3o years ago????
fakes or mostly new cars have been around since the late 5o`s. remind that there are now more mercedes SSK`s around than ever produced. same happens to the alfa 175o, etc. raffaeli is a "real" man, punishing
himself for building up bugattis in using the best parts he could find out of various cars.
mixing up new and original parts comes from the rules of the VSCC I think, giving a car a certificate
when 4 or 5 ( I think so) major parts are original.

keep posting on
regards from austria ( hope we meet next year in salzburg at the internat. bugatti ralley)
mike

I am generally in agreement with you Mike and you are correct, most (all?) historians make mistakes somewhere along the line. Regarding this particular T35 it would seem that there are some doubts as to what it is not ; perhaps the fun will lie in discovering what it is.

I do have sympathy for Mr. Trepsat though ; I could be wrong but it seems he acted in good faith and is now having to face the possibility that his T35 has a markedly different history than he was led to believe, and that cannot be a very pleasant experience. Wouldn't it be nice if the gentleman received some good news regarding 4394? Does anyone have such good news?

Having said that Mr. Trepsat, you are the owner of a Bugatti T35 ; life has smiled on you.

Kind Regards
Johan Buchner

"Tyre problems had prevented the type 35 from showing its full potential at Lyon in August 1924 but by the end of the year, Ettore had cars ready to sell to favoured customers. The Cholmondeleys were ensconced at the Villa Caldana, near Cannes in the South of France and the Marques took delivery of his car on the 2nd January 1925 returning home using a temporary registration (1782 WW 5). It was issued with a permanent registration (7997 M5) on 15th January, 1925. Two months later, on 15th March, 1925 Cholmondeley won the prestigious La Turbie hill-climb event.

The car had several non-standard features, no doubt fitted by special arrangement with Ettore. Unusually, the car was adorned with a pinstriped colour scheme and after the car was transported to the Cholmondeley estate in Norfolk it was again repainted with a lighter colour scheme. Several pictures have survived showing the car at Houghton Hall, however, the car was soon disposed of to the London Bugatti dealer Malcolm Campbell. The pictures survive, the Hall survives, but not the car."

The above extract is from an article on the Cholmondeley Bugattis by Graham Little & Keith Mountain published in the latest issue of the Revue on the Bugatti Page ( http://www.bugattirevue.com/).

Mr. Little is a regular contributor to this Forum (he prefers the anonymity of a pseudonym) and he usually gets his facts right. He states 4394 to be no more. Another equally respected contributor informs me that while Butti may not have had an unblemished record by any means, he maintains that Rondini is a man of integrity whose word should not be doubted ; Rondini believe Frank Trepsat to be the rightful owner of 4394.

Is it possible that in spite of his reputation Butti may have been truthful about this car? Listen, I could be very wrong about this, but I just do not believe 4394 to be a fake. Can all those who have any knowledge on this car, however unpalatable, please post it?

Thanks
Johan

The Bugatti Trust published "The Grand Prix Bugatti" in 2004 and employed David Sewell to update the register of surviving cars. The car is listed on page 253 and is shown as NOT having survived. Perhaps the gentleman who claims to own the car now could approach the Trust and ask whether their opinion has changed since 2004. Better still, perhaps he could invite me to take some detailed pictures of the car which could be inspected by all the world's experts. And I'll do it for free.

PS - does anyone know what became of Mr. Butti ?