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Automotive Lifestyle
VINTAGE: Ettore Bugatti’s Last Race Car
The famed French automaker’s most-powerful grand prix car, the Type 50B III, was still a throwback in 1939 with solid axles and cable-operated brakes.
The 1939 Type 50/50B grand-prix race car was the first from Bugatti with an aerodynamic body and fully cowled radiator. (Photo: Wouter Melissen)
Created in 1939, this Bugatti Type 59/50B is one of the very last and certainly the most-potent racing car produced with Ettore Bugatti still at the company helm.
Beneath its curvaceous panels, it is very much a vintage Bugatti design complete with solid axles and cable-operated drum brakes. It is also equipped with a massive 4.7-liter supercharged engine, which produces in excess of 400 horsepower.
Raced with considerable success right before and after World War II, the unique Type 59/50B I is today on permanent display in the former Schlumpf Collection museum in Mulhouse, France.
By the mid-1930s, Bugatti's dominance of Grand Prix racing seemed but a distant memory. First the Italian and then the German manufacturers took over with superior designs and budgets. Demand for customer competition cars also dwindled, so Bugatti had little incentive to produce brand new machinery. Instead the fabled manufacturer soldiered on with evolutions of existing designs during the final years of the decade.
In response to the new 750 kg regulations, Bugatti had introduced the new Type 59 in 1933. New was even in this case perhaps not the best word as it featured a classic Bugatti Grand Prix chassis with a slightly smaller, supercharged version of the Type 57 road-car engine.
The car handled well but the arrival of the German teams in 1934 left Bugatti's latest Grand Prix machine struggling. Larger engines were tried but the cars were so far off the pace that Bugatti decided to sell four examples to privateers, who mostly fielded them in sports-car races with some success.
One of the Type 59s retained by Bugatti re-appeared with a brand new straight-eight engine. Although officially referred to as a Type 50B, it was considerably different than the Type 50-based engines used in the road car by the same name and the Type 54 Grand Prix racer.
The most fundamental difference was the use of lightweight alloys for the block. This was essential to keep the weight of the complete car down to the 750 kg maximum as dictated by the regulations. Displacing just over 4.7 liters, the supercharged eight was hoped to produce in excess of 500 horsepower, but reliability was already an issue at boost levels that were good for 400 horsepower.
The new engine was installed in what is believed to be the sixth and final Type 59 chassis. With clear roots in the hugely successful Type 35 of the 1920s, this design was really showing its age by 1936. Ettore Bugatti’s conviction that solid axles and cable-operated drum brakes were still the way to go prevented any development on the chassis.
One benefit was that the Bugatti engineers had vast experience with this configuration, so the cars handled very well, but for ultimate speed, the independently sprung rivals would always have the edge.
Beneath its curvaceous panels, it is very much a vintage Bugatti design complete with solid axles and cable-operated drum brakes. It is also equipped with a massive 4.7-liter supercharged engine, which produces in excess of 400 horsepower.
Raced with considerable success right before and after World War II, the unique Type 59/50B I is today on permanent display in the former Schlumpf Collection museum in Mulhouse, France.
By the mid-1930s, Bugatti's dominance of Grand Prix racing seemed but a distant memory. First the Italian and then the German manufacturers took over with superior designs and budgets. Demand for customer competition cars also dwindled, so Bugatti had little incentive to produce brand new machinery. Instead the fabled manufacturer soldiered on with evolutions of existing designs during the final years of the decade.
In response to the new 750 kg regulations, Bugatti had introduced the new Type 59 in 1933. New was even in this case perhaps not the best word as it featured a classic Bugatti Grand Prix chassis with a slightly smaller, supercharged version of the Type 57 road-car engine.
The car handled well but the arrival of the German teams in 1934 left Bugatti's latest Grand Prix machine struggling. Larger engines were tried but the cars were so far off the pace that Bugatti decided to sell four examples to privateers, who mostly fielded them in sports-car races with some success.
One of the Type 59s retained by Bugatti re-appeared with a brand new straight-eight engine. Although officially referred to as a Type 50B, it was considerably different than the Type 50-based engines used in the road car by the same name and the Type 54 Grand Prix racer.
The most fundamental difference was the use of lightweight alloys for the block. This was essential to keep the weight of the complete car down to the 750 kg maximum as dictated by the regulations. Displacing just over 4.7 liters, the supercharged eight was hoped to produce in excess of 500 horsepower, but reliability was already an issue at boost levels that were good for 400 horsepower.
The new engine was installed in what is believed to be the sixth and final Type 59 chassis. With clear roots in the hugely successful Type 35 of the 1920s, this design was really showing its age by 1936. Ettore Bugatti’s conviction that solid axles and cable-operated drum brakes were still the way to go prevented any development on the chassis.
One benefit was that the Bugatti engineers had vast experience with this configuration, so the cars handled very well, but for ultimate speed, the independently sprung rivals would always have the edge.
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