Dear Jaap,

Until now, all what I knew about the T125 was what I had learnt on your web page. But one month ago Lazarus revealed some new information in this forum:





If Lazarus is right (he is the most authoritative contributor on this matter who I have known until now), the T125 would have been fitted with the T251 engine. That explains why two different types were designed:

T125, eight cylinders, big sports car (the "new T57", and with a much more modern design than the T78) The body design is dated March 1954.

T252/253, four cylinders, small sports car. The date on the designs of the T252 bodies sent by Uwe is February and April 1955. (By the way, thanks to Uwe for those superb drawings).

According to Lazarus, the first drawings of the T251 (which was raced at the Grand Prix of France at Reims on July 1, 1956) are from 1953 and the T251 and T252 were developed at the same time.

Maybe the T125 was only a body design, not having been still chosen the definitive engine when it was designed. Maybe the original idea was to power it with a big engine, having begun the design of the T251 in 1953 (one year before) as a big eight cylinder engine. Maybe the company decided to complete its future range of models with an smaller four cylinder car (the T252), designed at the same time than the T251 engine. Colombo began to work for Bugatti in 1955, having he and his team the task of developing both models.

Maybe after Colombo's departure the company was unable to finish the development of the T125 powered by the T251 engine and they concentrated their efforts on the T252 and T253, dropping the T125 because it was a different and more complex design.

Or maybe the T125 simply was evolved into the 252. In this case, the T252 would have been a derivative of the T125. I do not think so. It does not have much sense that the original idea of the company was to design a complete engine (the T251) to build only two GP cars.

Of course, these are only my personal theories and opinions; I am sure that other contributors will have a more accurate knowledge than me.

I think that the T125 is too small to be fitted with the T251 engine, it has only a 2.4 meter wheelbase.

I guess Lazarus wrote T251 engine here by mistake, where he really ment T252.

The drawing is purely a body drawing, no chassis details and only the outside of a twin cam engine, mounted transversely behind the driver. Intriguingly, there also is an engine outline for a longitudinal front mounted 4-cylinder engine.

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Lazarus did not come back from the dead to make mistakes ! What is the wheelbase of the T251 ? The oldest Colombo drawing that I have for the T251 ON BUGATTI PAPER is dated 30/11/53.However he already had this design in his briefcase before he went to work at Molsheim.There exists a drawing from Colombo in Italy showing the T251 design with all independent suspension.If Bugatti had not wanted the design then it could have turned up as a Maserati or Ferrari or anything else.The definitive cylinder head drawing is dated january 1954.Surely the factory would not have had the money to play at racing car constructors unless there had been a parallel road car project to generate money.The sketch done by Colombo was just a taster to encourage the management with what might be possible.It would have been very difficult to fit the four cylinder motor in that way.The gearbox and diff from the T251 would have been rather big for that small motor.One problem is that the drive is taken from the centre of the T251,I have tried to visualise the way you might remove one half of the T251 motor and leave just four cylinders.It is not easy.I have just delvered the first original T251 patterns to the foundry............they are being used for the first time since 1956.I had to make a new external pattern for the 8 cylinder cambox.I have made a small change.......the Bugatti badges on the originals have Bugatti and EB.My patterns have Bugatti without the EB .My motor will always be recognisable and also the T251 was a Bugatti but non EB design so I decided that this was appropriate.

There were two type 251 at Rheims for the French Grand Prix.

In my opinion, the car which raced was the earlier car which had appeared on test.

The car which appeared in practice but which did not race was, in my opinion, a recently completed car evidenced by that fact that it appears to have no rear view mirrors.

Both the above cars had aerodynamic devices which partly shielded the front wheels.

There was however either another car, or an earlier version of the first car with no such aerodynamic shields. The picture of this car was published in "Bugantics" in 2001/2 (Vol.60/4/49). It is said to show an early version of the 251.

Perhaps our type 44-lover could use his BOC influence to allow this picture to be reproduced on this website.

Just so you know that work continues on the T251 here is john Underwoods nice radiator fitted today for the first time.It almost went straight on!Now on with the motor.

I have of course studied the strange "square four" rotating cylinderhead engine in the Mougins museum in the south of france.This is a silly idea which has no benefits that I can see.It was obviously going to appeal to the twit Roland whose knowledge of engineering could doubtless half fill a postage stamp.

Looks frightning. Do you plan on leading the coolant through the chassis tubes?

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Vive la Marque !!

I never stopped to think about it ! I just followed Colombos drawing.With modern coolant it will not rust,but I did consider using machine soluble oil in the water.Just a little.I did however not run the oil through the chassis.I have as you can see oil pipes for this,and I have added an oil cooler as the motor is hidden behind the driver It is probably a good idea.The dry sump tank is just behind the radiator,all to drawing.

I delivered the T251 block patterns to the foundry last week...The 14 cores took very little time to make up due to the superb design done by the pattern makers at Molsheim,but it took only 5 minutes to assemble the block cores.Everyone at the foundry was staggered at the ease and also the infalability of the assembly.There are squares and stars and circles on the various cores which line up with similar marks so that it is very quick and just impossible to get wrong.An object lesson in just how to make good patterns from the old boys at Molsheim.

Finding good craftsmen these days is getting more and more difficult. I guess the really good guys jump into other fields, like computer stuff.

I hope the caster is going to do a good job...

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Vive la Marque !!