Unknown type 46

Herman · **Posted:** Sat Dec 01, 2007 8:41 pm

My dear friend Gerald Wingrove gave me this picture, and asked if anything was known about this car.

Quote:

Have you come across any other photos of the Weinberger Type 46 attached. Lola, the young lady in the picture drove the car to Davos in Switzerland in June 1933, and I never did find out what happened to it there.

Where there any custom car body builders in Switzerland in 1933 who could have rebodied this Type 46??

If so, do you have any photos of a Type 46 body built by them in 1933 or early 1934??

So which car is this, are there more pictures, and could it have been rebodied in Switserland?

Could this be the Fuchs owned type 46?

rivaaquarama · **Posted:** Sat Dec 01, 2007 9:35 pm

The Car looks like the Type 50 on page 81 of the Barrie Price book about the type 46 and 50

Johan Buchner · **Posted:** Sun Dec 02, 2007 12:37 pm

Barrie Price is wrong, it cannot possibly be a T50. The wheelbase is much too long. Perhaps a T50T, although the treatment of the wheel centres would seem to indicate a T46.

This infuriating confusion surrounding the T46 will remain untill such time that Kees Jansen's book is published. Perhaps Mr Jansen could let us know when his opus will be available? And also how long I will have to wait for the definitive history of both the Type 50 and Type 50T?

Regards
Johan :-P

Herman · **Posted:** Wed Jul 02, 2008 8:43 am

I will give this thread a kick. Perhaps now someone is able to solve the puzzle.

Johan Buchner · **Posted:** Thu Jul 03, 2008 10:17 am

Just a little while longer Herman. I believe the Saunier/Klein/Jansen T46 book is being posted during August, and Kees Jansen tells me that it contains research not even Laugier was aware of. I won't know until I get it, but I suspect this to be the definitive T46 work we all hoped it would be.

I wrote an e-mail to Jaap Braam Ruben just to enquire as to the fate of the Arletta Schlumf collection and I received a most courteous reply from him.(Are there any Dutchmen who are not absolute gentlemen?) I neglected to ask him if I can talk about the plans for this collection, so I won't give details. But trust me on this one, if the plans come to fruition, the future for this collection will signal a new dawn for the preservation and public display of Bugattis.

Johan

Hunter · **Joined:** Thu Jan 31, 2008 10:51 pm **Posts:** 119

Arletta Schlumf or Arlette Schlumpf ?

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

Herman wrote:

Could this be the Fuchs owned type 46?

You are correct, Herman, this is the 46 owned by dr Fuchs before he bought the Royale.

Dr Fuchs was a gynaecologist, and a pioneer in his field. He was the first in Germany to introduce spinal anaesthesia for labour and delivery so called 'painless delivery', in those days unheard of. He had many rich and famous patients for which he had no hesitations in billing them (on the other hand he also charged nothing for poor patients). One of the famous people was mrs Chiang Kai-shek, the wife of the president of then China who later came to the rescue. When he received the Royale he had put the 46 in the name of his assistent, Lola Fine, seen here. From a list of his later possesions it turns out the cost of the Royale equalled about a quarter of his wealth.

However as often with successful people his exorbitant display of material wealth did not fall into grace with many of his collegue gynaecologists.

He was not a Jew; in fact he was a Catholic, the son of a Baker (family of seven children). In spite of the fact that he was not a Jew he was put on a Nazi blacklist which would forbid him to treat pure 'Arian' patients (Rein Arische personen). Luckily for him this was leaked to him some weeks before the list was published (after which his properties would undoubtedly have been seized). The same day that he had heard this he drove the Royale to Molsheim, so called for 'repairs', he let Lola (in whose name the 46 was registered) drive the 46 to Davos where he also had a practice, and he flew his private plain to Switzerland. The next day his practice in Germany was closed. He had a short time practice in Switzerland and then he went to Shanghai. From there he tried in vain for many years to be admitted to the USA but as he had a namesake in Turkey ('Fuks') who was suspected of drugs trafficing (then opium) they did not let him in for many years without telling him why. The reports of the government officials make fascinating reading! Finally this misunderstanding was cleared four years after the first application with the help of the chief of police in Shanhai and he was allowed to travel to the USA. This turned out to be two weeks before Shanghai fell and was captured by Mao Tse Tungs communists. This story is the result of a 20 year research by Gerald Wingrove and is recounted in detail in his book (about the beautiful Royale model he built in its original colour scheme).

In spite of all efforts we have not been able to identify the chassisnumber. It was the same coachbuilder, Weinberger, but it must have been a Bucar car

Kees Jansen

Johan Buchner · **Posted:** Fri Jul 04, 2008 8:37 am

Thanks for this Kees! A true mystery indeed, wasn't Bucar the Swiss agents? Why did they deliver a T46 to Germany? Incidentally, Gerald Wingrove speculates that the Royale was bought as a means to get his money out of Germany, the irony being of course that when he finally got it to America, it proved practically impossible to sell.

Speaking of the Weinberger T41, the Head of Preservation at the Henry Ford Museum, Ms. Mary Fahey tells me that they plan to restore their Royale back to original specification. Funds permitting they hope to start within a year. Gerald Wingrove's research provide a clear explanation for both the colour scheme, and the white rubber up to the sill ; all to do with visually managing the vast proportions. Which may explain why it never looked right in the ivory and dark green applied during it's first restoration.

Regards
Johan

J.J.Horst · **Posted:** Fri Jul 04, 2008 9:11 am

Bucar was active both in Germany as well as in Switzerland, they had an office in Berlin. See for some info the Bugatti Revue; Volume 11
Issue 1 (April 2, 2006)

Johan Buchner · **Posted:** Fri Jul 04, 2008 9:45 am

It never ceases to amaze me just how much Bugatti history is available free of charge on the internet, much obliged Jaap. Questions : Is it unusual for there to be seemingly no records left for this T46? Are there many Bugattis for which little to no information survives?

To compare : The Roe book on Duesenberg lists only 2 J/SJ's that are complete mysteries. Then again, the USA was never bombed during the 2nd World War, but this mass slaughter consumed the lives of nearly 60 million souls. Enquiring about the fate of a few cars is a sacrilege, there are things which must never be mocked.

Johan

J.J.Horst · **Posted:** Fri Jul 04, 2008 10:42 am

There are many cars of which nothing or very little is known. For example, in the Dutch/Belgian register, there are many cars that were delivered to the Bugatti agent in the Netherlands, Stam. For some of these cars nothing is known at all, for some it is only known to whom these cars were originally sold.

I suspect that there are maybe a 1000 Bugattis or more, that are in the factory records, but of which no info is available at all. (Kees, is this number approximately right, or is it much bigger?)

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

J.J.Horst wrote:

I suspect that there are maybe a 1000 Bugattis or more, that are in the factory records, but of which no info is available at all. (Kees, is this number approximately right, or is it much bigger?)

From the approximately 8 and a half thousand Bugattis ever built, about 2100 are now in the database, and on top of that we now have about 400 replica's. Incidentally, a number of the latter are represented in the Wiki as genuine. A number of well known Bugatti builders (real size) in the seventies and eighties made cars which often, after some time, were sold as real just to make more money. In a number of cases the new owners were in for an unpleasant surprise and in other cases the fraud was not detected.
One thing you can say for the Argentinian builder Pur Sang: you can always recognize them, but even there some owners tried to make them look like originals and tried to sell them as originals.
I have nothing against replicas, but I strongly object against replica's being sold as originals.

The factory data are largely still there, but of many thousands of Bugatties so far the history is not known, especially Brescias.

We produced the Dutch Belgian register with this philosophy in mind. That has led to a wealth of more information; soon there will be a volume 2 and later Volume 3, each with about 250 different cars from part 1, and with lots of corrections. All legitimate owners of part 1 will receive an e-mail when it is done. They will be allowed to buy Vol 2 with matching numbers at a special price. 10 copies were stolen; all numbers are known, and also the name of the seller who put them up for sale on e-bay. Onwers of these numbers are excluded from this offer.
Jaap, I will send you an example of a page which you can put on your site, to show how it is going to look.

Herman · **Posted:** Sun Jan 04, 2009 2:49 pm

I got this picture on the Email:

<img src="http://www.bugattibuilder.com/photo/albums/userpics/10003/ZZZuntitled.jpg" alt="Bugatti type 50">

Could it be the Fuchs type 46?

octagonfox · **Joined:** Wed Aug 23, 2006 6:05 pm **Posts:** 232

No, it is probably 50132. Hard to see because the image is small.

Herman · **Posted:** Sun Jan 04, 2009 3:25 pm

You are probably right. Too bad...

Unknown type 46

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