Dear Friends

Yesterday Stuart's most generous gift of Grand Prix Bugatti arrived here in sunny South Africa. At first I was a little disappointed to be honest, not enough about the King Leopold T59 you see. But I have learned that Conway's work always, but always keep on giving more as time goes by, so instead of moping, I surrendered to the Great Man, and in a very short period of time I understood what he was trying to do : He was giving prominence to the G.P. cars in proportion to their success and, stroke of genius this, then brings it all up to date by explaining how this translate into today's appreciation of Bugatti. At the end of the day Hugh Conway was first and foremost an enthusiastic owner of some very choice Bugattis.

I learnt a very important thing last night; the success of the T35, is the success of Bugatti as a Marque. If the T35 was not both a racing and sales triumph, Bugatti would have been consigned to just another footnote in the history of the automobile. Suddenly I understood. I now have the opportunity to learn everything there is to know about Ettore's greatest triumph (whither La Royale?) and I will learn from the words of a giant. God, I love Hugh Conway.

Just a thought; if it wasn't for Hugh Conway, would Bugatti still have been held in such high esteem, by so many of us? The man sure as hell knows how to explain very complex engineering in such a way that even one as non-mechanically inclined as myself, can, not only understand, but also celebrate Ettore's genius, while still understanding that La Patron was not devoid of failings. Only Ettore Bugatti could have created the Type 35; only Ettore Bugatti can "improve" said car by removing the suspension! And the T36 is ugly!

Probably a good thing I like my heroes flawed.

Kind Regards
Johan Buchner

PS. Stuart, I have not been able to find a single one of Conway's mistakes you mentioned. But I will, I promise. By the way, I love those hand written notes of yours - this book has history, now I can add to it. Thanks Stuart, I owe you, big time.

The main shortcoming with Conway Snr. as a historian was that he wasn't particularly interested in discussing Ettore's weaknesses as a human being and an engineer. Also, he took for granted quite a high level of prior knowledge about Bugattis and engineering on the part of his reader.

Do you want a clue.......or do you want to wait a few days?


Kind Regards



Stuart

Ah Stuart, how nice to have a response from a rational and sane human being. Don't you dare give me a hint! I love a challenge!!

Johan

Of course the biggest success, both commercial as well as marketing wise was due to the choice of Ettore to actually sell his GP cars to anybody who wanted to.

Many of the other manufacturers didn't sell their GP cars, moreover some even scrapped their racing cars after the season, to prevent them being used by privateers who might be faster then their own factory cars.

Of course the effect was that there were, from about 1926, more Bugatti racing cars in many races than other marques. Sometimes even more than all marques together! Ettore of course used this extensively in his advertising, using all possible means to increase the number of wins!

Other effect of course is that there are many GP-Bugattis around now!

_________________
www.BugattiPage.com
www.BugattiRevue.com
www.BugattiAircraft.com

In France and England, he had no competition, as Alfa and Fiat raced mostly in Italy. For my information, only Fiat scrapped their cars.
For the two liter Championchip, there were only three Delages 2 LCV and six Alfa Romeo P2 and I think the Sunbeam Tigress.
From 1926 onwards, there were 5 Delage 15 8 S and four Talbot-Darracq 1.5 and some Maseratis. The Bugattis were the less developted cars in the field, but they raced even in Sportscar races, without any competition. Bugatti depended highly from the Starting and Pricemoney.
He started winning Grand Prix Racing, when all the competition retired from Racing. Talbot, Delage and Alfa went nearly bankrupt, with their racing efforts.
Only Bugatti earned money, reputation and clients, with his racing cars.
I think Ferrari learned a lot of him.

Regards
Jörg

Bugatti was far from being competitive in the early years of the T35/39. Although chassis and roadholding had been reasonable (no, not perfect as always is said), the engine was underpowered. Not only that it lacked supercharging during the 2 litre formula 1924/25, it was also only SOHC whereas the competition used DOHC engines. The 2 litre racing cars of Alfa, Fiat, Mercedes and Sunbeam had between 150 and 180 hp, whereas the T35 must live with 100 at its best. The 1.5 litre engine of the Delage 15S8 in 1926/27 performed 170 hp, and although the T39A was supercharged it did not produce more than 130 hp (which I believe was already wishful thinking). The chassis of the Delage with its extremely low point of gravity was extraordinary, don't forget that the 15S8 even in the 30's was able to win voiturette races against strong competition from modern cars like ERA or Maserati.

But the real success of Bugatti in the years 1924-27 was not in top class Grand Prix racing, meaning the Grande Epreuves counting for the world championship, but in the lower category circuit races and hillclimbs, much of them also carried the title "Grand Prix". There had been countless of these events all over Europe, and this was the playground of the amateurs who raced for fun only, or the semi-professionals who tried to make their living from start and price moneys.

Competition was not existing, all the other cars had been simple sports cars only, sometimes disguised by racecar-like bodywork. Plus sporadically some outdated race cars in the hand of privateers, often badly maintained due to lack of knowledge and spares.
A good 1.5 litre sports/race car of that period had abt. 40/45 hp, and 2 litres seldomly topped the 60 hp barrier.

Normally these races had been splitted in categories, 1100 cc (cyclecars) and 1500 cc (voiturettes), the upper class sometimes was open, sometimes 2 litre and even 3 litre classes had been installed by the organizers. Bugattis dominated the voiturette and the 2 litre class, but also the "free formula" where only some heavy "big bangers" from time to time tried to break the Bugatti dominance. For winning a race - or a class - a Bugatti was a "must". Only the small 1100 cc cyclecar class was Amilcar or Salmson territory, the T36 was a one-off, as Bugatti was afraid to loose on the longterm.

Bugatti's success from 1928 onwards then was simply based on the "Free Formula" which took over the professional racing scene. With the real works teams disappeared the Bugattis also in the top category had no competition anymore. They dominated everything, from the Grandes Epreuves down to the smallest local hillclimbs.

But Bugattis major problem was the engine size and layout. With 2.3 litre the limits had been reached, and the DOHC T51 engine came much too late. Maserati as example started with a 1.5 litre supercharged DOHC 8 cylinder in 1926, but increased the size at that engine through 2, 2.5 and 2.8 up to to even 3 litre. And Alfa Romeo started their similar engine at 2.3 litres with enough potential to reach finally 3.3 litres. Bugatti never developed his T44 3 litre engine into a racing version, and the T59 3.3 litre engine as not more than a tuned sports car engine.

Breakeven point was 1931, when the T51, the Alfa Monza 8C 2.3, and the Maserati 8C-2500 had been equal contenders, by power, by roadholding, and by weight. But when the others went further in development, Bugatti decided to sit on his laurels only.

To add to this thread:

Bugatti got hold of a Miller racing car. He put the engine on his testbed, and found that the HP/l rating was much higher than his cars. (somewhere in the 135-150 HP/l for the Miller, and less than or up to 100 HP/l for a Bugatti engine.)

Definately not the thing you like to see when developing racing cars...

_________________
Vive la Marque !!

Ettore's ability to embellish the success of his racing cars resulted in the unparalleled sales success of the Type 35. The only people who remember the contemporary racing cars constructed by Fiat, Miller, Talbot, Delage et al, are a handful of historians. Ettore Bugatti achieved immortality with less than 8000 cars. Genius, pure unadulterated genius.

A famous composer once remarked : "There are no monuments for critics." Exactly.

Regards
Johan Buchner

and thinking, that Miller copied the 1919 Ballot Indianapolis Engine, so Bugatti copied a Copy. That's real Genius.

Regards
Jörg