How many built

hortig78rpm · **Joined:** Thu Jun 19, 2008 12:12 pm **Posts:** 247

where did this lot come from? maybe not about 5oo ? maybe not so much, but I think a large number turned out during the last three decades. the fall of the iron curtain, private collections in france like the douvaz one ( remember the high taxes on fortune in france, so many collectors hide them away), barnfiends and even many collectors, who ( maybe they had got the agressive mailings fom schlumpf out of conways register) did`nt like to be registered in any way ( look out for the reprint of an article from germany about an old T37). and of course, cars which had been rebuild from a basket of spares ( not the replicas). look back in the late 7o`s and early 8o`s, the interest in bugattis was shared by less fewer people than today, there had`nt been bugatti ralleys all over europe a.s.o.
if you are lucky ( as I) to have "the automobie" magazine, you can see monthly, what cars still turn up unrestored today ( the latest valuable had been a vauxhall OE and an early french car from about 1898 as the only surviver of two or three cars ever built)

regards
mike

Johan Buchner · **Posted:** Wed May 19, 2010 1:04 pm

AAAaaaaarrrggh!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks Greg, T40 and Mike, I do feel foolish. To cover my blushes herewith a question designed to draw attention away from my ignorance : How many surviving Bugattis lay claim to a genuine Molsheim provenance as opposed to those cars wearing a "BC" or "R" identity? Follow up question(s) : Is an Argentinean T35 wearing a BC plate enough of a Bugatti to be called a Bugatti? Depending on the answer, exactly how many Bugattis are still with us then?

I think I've just confused myself - again.

Johan

J.J.Horst · **Posted:** Wed May 19, 2010 1:51 pm

You manage to confuse many more than just yourself.

Apart from obvious remakes or replicas like the "Empereur" and the T43 mentioned earlier, Bugattis do surface regularly, even these days. For 500 Bugattis to surface in 30 years, that would be less than 20 each year. With even some complete collections surfacing like the Malmerspach collection (were those Bugattis listed by Conway?), this number does not seem impossible.

A number that I heard some while back was 2200 Bugattis surviving, that does not seem impossible.

We'll have to ask master-registrar Kees Jansen, he has info on each Bug ever made (from 1909 until now :lol:

). He should be able to give us numbers for how many genuine 100% Molsheim, those with some new parts but mostly original, and the rest of which nothing is certain......

What you would call a Pur-Sang is a matter of taste; Mitsubishi's built in the Dutch Nedcar plant are still called Mitsubishi, because they are of Mits design. The Argentinian's are also built (well, at least partly) to the original design. Call them just Sang, forget about the Pur... :mrgreen:

Johan Buchner · **Posted:** Wed May 19, 2010 4:40 pm

I have asked many stupid questions on this forum but asking for clarity as to the definition of a Bugatti and its impact on the number of survivors is without doubt the stupidest one yet. First of all, if anyone actually knows the exact number of survivors, original or otherwise, kindly keep it to yourself. You can be as sad as me, but not sadder. And committing a lists of chassis numbers to memory is very sad indeed - I mean no disrespect Monsieur Laugier. Moving on, what you call your car is none of my business, you may refer to your Pur Sang as a Bugatti T35B as often as you damn-well please ; until such time you need to sell it. Then you might want to stick to the facts. Just a suggestion.

How many Bugattis are left? What the Hell was I thinking. Apologies.

I Remain for Evermore
Johan the Crusader for the Ethical Treatment of Captive Bugatis

hortig78rpm · **Joined:** Thu Jun 19, 2008 12:12 pm **Posts:** 247

J.J.horst

quite right you are. I think there is still a number of unknown bugs around. I remember
one or two years ago in the : www. forum-auto.com site, I saw pics of 7 unrestored
to fair cond. bugs in a private collection. never turned up.
this year retromobile saw some photos of an unrestored T4o/44 fiarce , and even remember the roadsder, which was discovered in france together with a voisin.

and I`m not sure, how much cars wait to be found in the ex- eastern comunistic countries

mike

J.J.Horst · **Posted:** Thu May 20, 2010 9:51 am

You must not forget that in the 20's - 30's, Bugattis were mentioned as being race winners in the newspapers almost every week.

I'm sure this stuck to the minds of everybody, and whenever somebody had a Bugatti in the 40's or 50's, this was remembered, and prevented quite a few Bugattis from being scrapped.

hortig78rpm · **Joined:** Thu Jun 19, 2008 12:12 pm **Posts:** 247

I once ( some 1o years ago), I read the story of an octoaerian owner of a secret car-collection in france, that he " torched up" every bugatti, he got in his hands, for they had been too " fussy". he collected salmson, amilcars and BCN´s for they were better to handle and to support.......

there `s also a story of a young english collector, who went into a yard in the late 5o`s seeing a T55 roadsder beeing cut for melting. the only item he could save had been the radiator cap.......

mike

barttore · **Joined:** Wed Jul 15, 2009 5:38 pm **Posts:** 642

In Rafaelli's "Memoires of a Bugatti Hunter" book is a similar story, if I remember well this was a big SSK Mercedes or alike. Today only the Zeiss Headlights survive.

And of course the original Iron-molecules that once were in the Benz survive too in a sense, but they might be recycled for 3rd time by now into a washing machine or a soda can. How humiliating :lol:

But then: maybe parts of a "new" Veyron were once also soda-cans or horse shoes or.... (I must stop now...)

J.J.Horst · **Posted:** Fri May 21, 2010 12:25 pm

Yes, you can go on like this; you know that some of the water molecules that were once in Napoleon's body are now in yours!

Maybe explains your urge to go and conquer Russia!

keesj · **Joined:** Sat Feb 04, 2006 6:01 pm **Posts:** 46

Dear all,

Serious business, Ah?

I am sorry it is so scarce that I have time to visit these forums.
Next to a full time job I am writing NLB-3 which has over 400 Bugattis in addition to NLB-1 and NLB-2. Should be done in 2012.

I can find out exactly how many Bugattis are made as I have access to the original factory documentation. In total about 8700 numbers were allotted but Bugatti often renumbered cars at will. (The only thing that was kept unique was the engine number) so the total will be less. Also often license plates were reused for other cars. A chassis number was a government imposed nuisance.

I have in the database 2794 cars (including replica's) Of these are at least 360 replica's and 267 cars that use different genuine Molsheim chassisnumbers. Whilst not many original cars turn up, the number of replica's is still growing for instance from our Argentinean friends.

Kees

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