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Middleton d'Este's Bugatti ?
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Author:  barttore [ Fri Apr 17, 2015 3:59 pm ]
Post subject:  Middleton d'Este's Bugatti ?

does anybody know more ?

From Motorsport, April 1992, Page 68:

Mystery Bugatti

The New Scientist reports a single-seater Bugatti on view at a

new London Transport Museum. Some years ago a motoring paper told of the same car as being a Type 23, saying it was a one-off raced at Brooklands in 1925 by a Capt Middleton D'Este, who threw in the towel after a few such outings, although the Bugatti was said to have remained intact, if unused, for many years, until it was cannibalised by someone who used parts of it to build a replica Type 13 Bugatti.

This presents a pretty problem. In the first place, I can find no evidence of a Capt D'Este ever having raced at Brooklands, or being a member of the BARC at the relevant time. Then the Bugatti OC, in its "British Bugatti Register, Second Edition," of 1989, lists fourteen Type 13 Bugattis and another twelve Type 13 Replicas, all having a "continuous history", although this sounds a bit ambiguous in the case of replicas with new chassis frames. The Register also lists 23 Type 23s, but none is quoted as having had Capt D'Este as its former owner. I wondered if this car was the rather obscure Brescia Bugatti I had encountered before the war in Thornton Heath, owned then by the Bacca brothers; but that one, when I saw it, had a "rather sketchy two-seater body". As all that is in the museum is apparently the mono posto body, the fuel tank. an undershield, and the driver's seat. Molsheim-sleuths look like having a hard task of identification? W B


http://www.motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/april-1992/68/mystery-bugatti

Author:  barttore [ Fri Apr 17, 2015 4:04 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Middleton d'Este's Bugatti ?

Well the answer is also in Motorsport, June 1992, Page 68

Bugatti ID

Sir,

The so-called 'Mystery Bugatti. featured in last month's issue was chassis No 2534, one of a batch invoiced to London agents Jarrott & Letts in June 1925. Capt Middleton d'Este owned it until his death in 1979, when it was acquired, minus the monoposto body etc, by South African enthusiast Clive Woolley who retains it. albeit now in shortened Type 13 form. It is listed only in 1980's first edition of the British Bugatti Register, as it was then still in the UK.

Capt d'Este converted the car to a single-seater, the driver sitting low alongside the offset driveline hence the need for the longer Type 23 frame. The engine was destroked to 1100 cc and a supercharger added. It is alleged he had completed a mere six laps of testing at Brooklands before the army summoned him to a spell of duty in India, since when the car has never run. The only reference I can find to him is an entry of an 11.9 hp Bugatti at Skegness in June 1925 by HAM d'Este of St Margarets.

As BOC RegistrarI must counter your mistaken observation that the Type 13 Replicas in the second edition of the British Bugatti Registerare credited with continuous histories. As you rightly say, it would be ambiguous, nay nonsensical, for any 'old' car with a new chassis frame to qualify for this attribute. Indeed, several Bugattis on original frames, some with known chassis numbers, do not so qualify. My own Type 13, which incidentally is fitted with the lightened flywheel from Capt d'Este's above-mentioned aborted record-breaker, falls into this latter category.

Finally if I may, I would like to correct two minor points in your Bugatti Trust feature. We claim availability of some 30,000 rather than 70,000 copies of Bugatti factory drawings, and our sectioned engine is a Type 30, not a Type 44.

David Sewell, Bugatti Trust, Prescott.


http://www.motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/june-1992/68/bugatti-id

Author:  barttore [ Fri Apr 17, 2015 4:07 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Middleton d'Este's Bugatti ?

"saying it was a one-off raced at Brooklands in 1925 by a Capt Middleton D'Este"

So are there photo's or other references to substantiate this?

More info inJaap's Bugattirevue:
http://www.bugattirevue.com/revue51/bug-richard%20daggit.pdf

Author:  davids [ Sun Apr 19, 2015 7:19 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Middleton d'Este's Bugatti ?

There are also fotos and references in Bob King's book on the brescia p213

especially the built up crank , rod and parts

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