Although this board is in deep coma I give it a try anyway.
Marcel Lehoux raced various Bugattis, among them 2 T51, #51128 and #51144. Raffaelli writes that the first one - #51128 - went to Louis Trintignant on 9 Feb 1933, contrary to this Conway reports delivery date of the new one - #51144 - as October 1933. As Lehoux raced extensively during the 1933 season one of these dates must be wrong. I'm tending to the delivery date of #51144, but would like to have also other opinions or even proven data.

#20 at V° Grand Prix de Monaco, 23th April 1933, could be 51144 with Marcel Lehoux ?

No idea, but if he sold #51128 in February to Trintignant - what other car should it be??

unfortunately no information to the photo

Photo was taken by Erwin Tragatsch in 1932 in the garage of Hotel Passage before the Start of the Masaryk Grand Prix

51144/33 delivered to Lehoux 15/06/33
Bugwrench

The car in Tragatsch picture shows Lehoux with startingnumber 12 in the 1932 race. Therefore he must have owned or driven 3 different types 51. Tragatsch usually did not make many errors.

Antoine Raffaelli and Adrien Maeght researched the history of both Trintignant cars in detail. Raffaelli even reports a date for the sale of #51128 from Lehoux to Trintignant - 9.2.1933. Trintignant then raced #51128 at Pau on 19.2.1933 (the famous snow race!), but was not pleased with the roadholding. He therefore told his mechanic Paul Sauret to swap the engines of both cars, #10 of car #51128 was mounted into his old car #4941, and engine #178 of car #4941 into the T51. The T35C with the T51 engine from #51128 was the car with which Trintignant had his fatal accident at the training for the GP de Picardie at Peronne on 21 May 1933.

Lehoux continued racing with a T51:
29.3.1933 - GP de Tunesie
23.4.1933 - GP de Monaco
21.5.1933 - GP Picardie Peronne
4.6.1933 - GP de Nimes
11.6.1933 - GP ACF Montlhery

Which car if he got #51144 only as late as 15 June??

Why? I cannot follow you.
This was #51128.


The caption of this photo is correct of course, but also Tragatsch was not perfect. He was wrong very often, but his work is still the best we have covering the history of German Bugattis.

Michael, I agree this is very odd but I have an indication that 51144 was produced already in 1932. I guess Lehoux was able to race the car before ownership transfer was officially documented.
Bugwrench

Very likely, as Lehoux was one of Le Patron's most respected privateers. But I doubt that it was a 1932 car, more like winter 1932/33. #51145 and #51146 both had been delivered in February 1933, so it is very likely that also #51144 was ready in this period. Interesting detail is the engine number (#33), one of the last ever made, and NOT fitting into the early 1933 timeline. Considering the fact that Lehoux had to retire because of broken engine already in lap 1 of the ACF Grand Prix on June 11, it looks like this engine being put into the car only then. Something like "Look Patron, I buy this bloody car, but only if you put a brand new engine into it".

No.14 Trintignant with 35c 2.0 - this entry is wrong

Michael, what most probably happened is that he raced 51143 during the time gap between selling 51128 and taking delivery of 51144. Despite the blank entry in the Conway list 51143/23 raced very actively during 1932 according to Molsheim notes. There also exists a Molsheim note: "51143 ex Lehoux" which should explain the link.
Engine 33 of 51144 was repaired with a new piston on 16/06/33 matching your remark on the DNF on June 11. But he apparently settled for a repaired engine instead of a brand new one! At what date Lehoux switched from 51143 to 51144 is not known.
51143/23 was refreshed and sold to Sorel as 51156/23 in 1934 explaining the 51143 blank entry. No doubt Pierre-Yves Laugier will tell us the complete story whenever his T51 book(s) will be published.
Bugwrench

@ Bart

Could have been any of the works cars which are unfortunately rather undocumented for 1932/33.


How sure is that?

@ Uwe

Did you read this?


There are much more mistakes in that entry list, I will try to get that corrected.