Thread: Jay leno talks Bugatti 51, just gorgeous.

Long time ago a mate, now deceased, had a Type 51A. This had a considerable competition history in Oz. It was well and truly obsolete when he bought it and not at all competitive but he had a lot of fun in club racing. He also would sneak it out at daybreak on a Sunday morning and run it around the roads of what was then a rural outer suburb for half an hour and get it back home before the wallopers arrived. The thing had a hell of an exhaust noise and no doubt was the source of a lot of complaints whilst out on his Sabbath dawn drives.

He was offered what was then an indecent amount of money for it by a USA collector, enough to buy a modest house, and it went over there. It is now in the Schlumpf collection.

Bugatti cheated this engine series straight off the Leon Duray FWD Millers he bought from Duray. Griffith Borgeson bought them back, late fifties, and restored at least one, the Packard Cable Special, which is in the Indianapolis Speedway Museum.