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 Post subject: Car 57542
PostPosted: Thu Feb 18, 2010 10:57 pm 
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Joined: Thu Jun 26, 2008 5:17 pm
Posts: 348
Pictures posted today show the rebuilt car.

57542

A type 57SC with engine SC 28 fitted with a coupé Atalante body (factory number 12) painted black and red with red leather interior. The car was completed on 15th June 1937 and briefly carried the factory "trade plate" registration 1245 W5 until it was delivered to Marcel Vidal from the Bugatti showroom in the Avenue Montaigne, Paris two days later. It was then issued with the Département Seine registration 4703 RL. Vidal sold the car the following year to Anna Magnin-Dufaux who registered it as 4349 AB 3 in the Département Ain in December, 1938.

How the car survived the war years is not known, but in November 1948 it was issued with the registration 7566 PB 6 in the Département Haut Rhin. The following year it appeared in Paris with the well-known Bugatti dealer Lamberjack. Nineteen year old Michel Proberejsky (later known as the Grand Prix driver Mike Sparken) who lived in the Boulevard de la Saussaie in Neuilly wanted an XK 120 but was steered in the direction of the Bugatti by his neighbour Docime and purchased it for 50,000 old francs. In April 1951 it was again registered in the Département Seine, this time as 7328 Z 75. Proberejsky found the car too impractical and sold it to Michel Dovaz; the director of Radio Geneva who used it until the late fifties and then consigned it to the "Musée Montlhéry". The car was allowed to deteriorate and it ended up in Dovaz's Bugatti graveyard in Perigord.

Around 1989-90 it passed to Breuil who sold it the following year to Philippe Salvant. In 2004 it was bought by Peter Rae in the UK. The car has been rebuilt to original condition retaining its fifties registration until recently when its new German owner had it registered as LDK 06151. The new owner has recently used the car for continental events.


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 Post subject: Re: Car 57503
PostPosted: Mon Mar 01, 2010 8:54 pm 
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Joined: Thu Jun 26, 2008 5:17 pm
Posts: 348
57503
A type 57S with frame no. 8, assembly no. 17S and engine 16S which was supplied as a rolling chassis to Sorel’s London agency for the well known Rolls Royce and Bentley dealer, Jack Barclay of London for first owner Sir Robert D. Ropner with a factory invoice dated 29th January, 1937. It was fitted with an open four-seater body by Corsica Coachworks of Cricklewood, London and painted black with a light-colourered interior. In February, 1937 it was given the UK registration DUL 351 and was pictured carrying a small bear mascot on its radiator cap. During a trip to France Ropner visited Montlhéry and lapped at 112 mph but is said to have over-revved the engine. It was repaired by the factory in April (or May).

Post WW2 Ropner sold the car for £1,600 to Rodney E. Clarke of Continental Cars, Surrey, UK. In 1946 Clarke had a serious accident in the car. In 1947 H.H. Coghlan, who had previoulsy owned a type 35A and then a type 43 decided he wanted a really fast Bugatti. In Spring, 1959 he described how he obtained from Rodney Clarke of Continental Cars all the necessary parts to build up an open four-seater type 57S. The work took over a year and involved the fitment of several new parts as well as the gearbox and rear-axle from car 57573 (37S) supplied by one Ian Preston. However, it provided him with five years of motoring bliss. It was fitted with de Ram shock absorbers which worked superbly and the only modification tried was the fitment of an S.U. electric fuel pump. His article includes a picture of the car taken by Jack Lemon Burton showing the car with the registration EMO 207 which was issued to the car on 28th May, 1948 which made it eligible for the flat rate road tax recently introduced in England.

Coghlan’s circumstances changed and in 1953 he sold the 57S to K.G.A. Cook of Harlow, Essex. It has been owned by UK domiciled New Zealander Bill Tunbull since 1969. He used the car in that year for a demonstration run at Prescott and this is believed to have been the car’s last public appearance. The car when purchased was in poor mechanical condition with numerous damaged fasteners including the main bearing studs. The chassis and rear axle were bent and the former had large lightening holes drilled by Clarke (?). The car’s rebuild is said to be ongoing. The work carried out on the car by Turnbull was listed in the 2000 British Bugatti Register (p. 179) with the car’s penultimate owner incorrectly (?) given as “Cock”.


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