Bugatti Royale

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Bugatti
Bugatti Type 41 Royale Coupé Napoléon, replica
Bugatti Type 41 Royale Coupé Napoléon, replica
Royale
Production period: 1926-1933
Class : Upper class
Body versions : Touring car , roadster , limousine , convertible , landaulet
Engines: Otto engines :
12.8 liters
(220 kW)
Length: 6000-6500 mm
Width: 1990-2030 mm
Height:
Wheelbase : 4300-4530 mm
Empty weight : 3000-3300 kg

The Bugatti Type 41 , also known as the Bugatti Royale , was a luxury vehicle from the French car manufacturer Bugatti .

Ettore Bugatti's goal was to design a luxury vehicle that was superior to the rival models from Rolls-Royce , Mercedes-Benz , Maybach and Cadillac , and that would be powered by the most powerful and smooth-running engine of its time. As a client, Ettore Bugatti mainly had the European royal houses and the rich of that time in mind.

The Royale was elaborately designed and, thanks to its up to 220 kW (300 hp) eight-cylinder in - line engine, reached a top speed of 200 km / h. The bodies of the Royale were exclusive and caused quite a stir. Due to the global economic crisis , the car was not a commercial success for Bugatti: In nine years only six chassis were built, two of which could not be sold. The engines experienced a successful re-use through the construction of Bugatti railcars for the French railways.

The Royale is one of the largest and heaviest cars in automotive history and is one of its great classics.

Development history

The planning and drafting of the Type 41 began as early as 1919. The first vehicle (chassis 41-111) was manufactured in 1926 and successively fitted with different bodies. It was presented to the public for the first time at the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring in June 1928. The design of the Type 41 was carried out by Jean Bugatti , Ettore's son. As was common in the luxury car market at the time, Bugatti only supplied the “rolling chassis”, that is, the chassis with all components including the engine and radiator grille, while the design of the body was left to independent bodybuilders . Ettore Bugatti retained control of his project, however, by making the delivery of the chassis dependent on his approval of the chosen bodybuilder and the body design: only the most respected companies and the most tasteful bodies should be good enough for his Royale. Jean Bugatti drew some of these designs.

A commercial success failed because of the global economic crisis that began at the end of 1929 . Ettore Bugatti was very picky about who he sold a Type 41 to. Other reasons were the very high price and potential customers who shied away from buying such an exclusive vehicle during these difficult times.

So only six vehicles were built. The first customer in 1931 was the French industrialist Armand Esders. Another customer in 1932 was the German doctor Dr. Josef Fuchs from Nuremberg, who emigrated to the USA in 1934 and took his Royale there with him. Due to its price, its exclusivity, its technology and the small number of units built, the vehicle is a legend today. All six vehicles still exist and are either in museums or privately owned, two of them in the Mulhouse Automobile Museum and one owned by Volkswagen . At an auction of a Type 41 Royale in Atlanta ( USA ) in 1991 , the bid sums exceeded the mark of 10 million US dollars when an unnamed Japanese won the bid.

As a hood ornament all Royale models an erect elephant, the Ettore's brother served Rembrandt Bugatti as Petschaft the seal of his brother had designed.

technology

It is powered by an eight-cylinder in - line engine , which Bugatti derived from a Type 34 aircraft engine from 1923 that was not in series production . In typical Bugatti fashion, it had an engine block in monoblock design, i.e. H. there was no removable cylinder head . This made it very resilient, but required the engine to be removed and dismantled to replace a valve . The block is one and a half meters long and decorated with a hand-made tenon joint . The massive crankshaft has nine bearings. The three valves per cylinder are also characteristic of Bugatti of this era. The engine is lubricated with 14 liters of oil, cooled with 48 liters of water and supplied from a petrol tank that holds 190 liters. Bore and stroke in the prototype are 125 × 150 mm, which results in a displacement of 14.7 liters; 125 × 130 mm were chosen for the series models. This resulted in a displacement of 12.7 liters. In France there were 75  taxable horsepower (CV); a Citroën Traction Avant had 7 or 11 CV depending on the engine; the 9.5-liter Hispano-Suiza J-12 had 54 CV, the J-12 up to 66 CV and Rolls-Royce Phantom I and II 40 CV.

In terms of its dimensions and displacement, the eight-cylinder engine block is one of the largest engines ever used in a road vehicle. It was so elastic that the car could be switched to 2nd gear from around 10 km / h and thus easily accelerated to over 100 km / h. There are very different figures for power between 147 kW (200 PS) and 220 kW (300 PS); the truth should be around 202 kW (275 hp). This makes this engine the most powerful in a pre-war production car before that of the Duesenberg Model J (195 kW (265 hp); with supercharger 235 kW (320 hp)).

The chassis has rigid axles at the front and rear; the vehicle length varies between 6.0 and 6.35 m depending on the short or long chassis. The total weight of the vehicle is around 3200 kg.

The models in detail

Bugatti manufactured six chassis for the Type 41. The price for the chassis alone was 450,000  French francs  - 100,000 FF more than a Rolls-Royce Phantom II chassis cost in France. This explains why some chassis were bodyworked several times. There were a total of eleven different bodies in the Type 41.

Chassis 41-100

The first chassis, manufactured in 1926, was given five different bodies in succession:

Phaeton with Packard body

Bugatti Type 41 Packard prototype (1926, Recreation )

The version from 1926 was designed as a Phaeton . Bugatti took over the body from a contemporary Packard Eight. This vehicle was, so to speak, the prototype of the Royale series. Unlike the later versions, this version had a 14.7 liter eight-cylinder engine.

Fiacre

In 1928 the Phaeton body was replaced by a coupé body called "Fiacre". This was a short-lived structure that was developed for exhibition purposes.

limousine

In the same year the chassis 41-100 was given a body designed as a four-door sedan. The vehicle was a so-called inside handlebar, so the chauffeur, unlike most contemporary luxury vehicles, did not sit outside. A special feature of the sedan was a large oval window behind the tailgate. The authorship of the body is not clear.

Coach Weymann

In 1929 a very elegant, two-door limousine ("Coach") was created, designed by Weymann in Paris. The structure was designed according to Weymann's patented system with a flexible frame. Aluminum sheet was used for the outer skin. It was originally designed in two colors in black and yellow with yellow accent stripes on the cooling fins on the bonnet and had a separate trunk lined with pigskin. The interior consisted of a specially made gray-beige fabric and amaranth- tinted rosewood . Weymann won many prizes, including the Grand Prix d'Honneur of the car magazine L'Auto 1929, which was awarded at the Paris Motor Show. Ettore Bugatti had an accident in this car in 1931 on a country road between Molsheim and Strasbourg. The chassis was severely damaged in the process. At this point the vehicle was painted black.

Coupé Napoléon

Bugatti Type 41 "Coupé Napoléon"

After Ettore Bugatti's accident with the Weymann limousine, the plant constructed a new chassis that was 23 cm shorter than the previous chassis. The new design kept the chassis number 41-100. The engine was replaced. While the previous versions of the 41-100 had retained the 14.7 liter eight-cylinder engine of the prototype, the new chassis was equipped with the regular 12.7 liter engine that had already been installed in younger chassis.

In 1931 the new chassis received an outer link body designed by Jean Bugatti. The passenger compartment was closed, but the chauffeur was sitting outside. The paint is black with a blue insert on the flank. The car was unofficially referred to as the "Coupé Napoléon"; alternative names are "Coupé du Patron" or Coupé de Ville . A second, very similarly designed body was created in 1935 for chassis 41-111. The “Coupé Napoléon” is now in the Cité de l'Automobile .

Chassis 41-111

This chassis, manufactured in 1932, was the first Royale model to be made to order. It received two structures in succession:

The Royale Roadster designed for Armand Esders (replica)

Roadster Armand Esders

In 1932, Jean Bugatti designed a roadster body for the Royale chassis on behalf of the Paris industrialist Armand Esders. The body had long, curved fenders and flowing lines and followed the design language of the Bugatti T55 , which appeared around the same time . The Esders roadster had removable headlights that were stowed in a compartment in the rear. Its owner did not drive at night and found headlights to interfere with the overall line of the vehicle.

After two years, the roadster body was removed. In the 1970s, the brothers Hans and Fritz Schlumpf began to replicate this automobile based on the original plans for the chassis and body. They were able to fall back on an unused original chassis and purchase an engine from one of the SNCF railcars. The project was suspended because of the turmoil surrounding their collection in the late 1970s. Decades later, the legal successor, the Schlumpf Collection , completed the reconstruction work. The newly built vehicle is owned by the museum.

Coupe de Ville Binder

Bugatti Type 41 Royale Binder Coupé De Ville

In 1935, the Parisian coachbuilder Henri Binder produced a Coupé de Ville body for chassis 41-111. The body was very similar to the “Coupé Napoléon” designed by Jean Bugatti from 1931. The paintwork is black with a white insert on the flank. The chassis and the underside of the fenders are painted red. The vehicle is now owned by the VW Group.

Chassis 41-121

Bugatti Type 41 Royale 'Weinberger Cabriolet' 1931

The chassis 41-121 is the first chassis in the Royale series that received only one body.

In 1931, the Munich-based coachwork company Weinberger designed on behalf of the Nuremberg doctor Dr. Joseph Fuchs designed a cabriolet body with a long bonnet and a narrow passenger compartment. The car was delivered in 1932 with black paintwork and a light-colored hood. Dr. Fuchs took the vehicle into exile , which took him in stages via Switzerland , Shanghai and Canada to New York . In the winter of 1937/38 the car suffered major engine damage as a result of a frozen cooling system . Eventually the car ended up in a junkyard in the Bronx . There it acquired in 1943 the GM - engineer Charles Chayne.

During the subsequent restoration in 1946/47, numerous changes and interventions were made. Technically, this included replacing the individual Schebler carburetors with a system with four Stromberg carburettors and converting mechanically to hydraulically operated brakes . The conversion of the brakes required different wheels , because Bugatti had integrated the original brake drums into the cast aluminum wheels in order to reduce the unsprung mass. Chayne put specially made, chrome-plated hubcaps on the new steel wheels . The external modifications included a repainting of pearlescent white with black accents, a black hood and a black suitcase . Chayne also redesigned the interior according to his ideas.

In 1958, Chayne donated the restored Royale to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn , where it remains one of the greatest attractions to this day. It is still in the modified state in which the museum received it.

Chassis 41-131

Bugatti Type 41 sedan Park Ward from 1933; Chassis no. 41-131, permanently on display in the Cité de l'Automobile

The car with chassis number 41-131 was the third Royale to find a buyer. It was delivered to the British Captain Cuthbert Foster in 1933. The car was designed as an inner handlebar sedan. The superstructure was manufactured at Park Ward in the UK. The vehicle is painted black and is now in the Cité de l'Automobile .

This model inspired the Swiss automobile designer Franco Sbarro to create his Sbarro Royale .

Chassis 41-141

In 1932 a two-door sedan with a body from Kellner & Cie , Paris , was developed for chassis 41-141 . The car was shown at the London Olympia Motor Show in 1932 but could not be sold. It was used by the Bugatti family. The vehicle became part of the Briggs Cunningham collection in the USA after World War II . It changed hands in 1987, 1990 and 2001.

Chassis 41-150

Bugatti Type 41 Berline de Voyage from 1929; Chassis No. 41-150

As early as 1929, the chassis 41-150 was equipped with the structure of a convertible sedan ("Berline de Voyage"). The vehicle remained in the possession of the Bugatti family for a long time. Ettore's widow used this royale until the 1950s. The Berline de Voyage was temporarily painted white with light gray accents. Today the carriage-like structure is emphasized by its yellow color, while the rest of the car is painted black.

Other use of the Royale engines

In anticipation of numerous orders, Ettore Bugatti had around 100 engines manufactured for the Royale from 1929 onwards. However, since only individual vehicles could be sold, there was soon an overstock of engines. They were initially stored in Molsheim and from 1935 on they were installed in the new four-axle rail motor cars that Bugatti had developed for the French railways SNCF . Such a SNCF XB 1000 required two to four of these motors, depending on the version. The SNCF ordered a total of 79 of these rail vehicles, indirectly making the Royale a commercial success for Bugatti.

Competitive models at the time

Replicas

In later years, the Bugatti Royale was used several times as a template for replicas that took up the theme of a large limousine in the style of the 1930s:

Panther De Ville

From 1974 to 1985 the British automobile manufacturer Panther Westwinds produced the De Ville sedan , which interpreted the design features of the Royale very freely. The vehicles were based on the technology of the Jaguar XJ and used numerous British Leyland components, including the passenger compartment of the mid-range model Austin 1800 ("Landcrab") . In addition to the four-door version, there were also some two-door coupés and convertibles.

Sbarro Royale

In 1976, the Swiss designer Franco Sbarro constructed a comparatively authentic replica of the Park Ward limousine, which was made in 1933 on the 141-131 chassis. A special technical feature of the vehicle called Sbarro Royale was its 7.0 liter sixteen-cylinder engine, which was composed of two eight-cylinder Rover engines . The Sbarro Royale remained a one-off.

Technikmuseum Sinsheim

Replica of the Coupé Napoléon

Here is a replica of the Coupé Napoléon.

Technical specifications

Technical specifications
Bugatti Type 41 Royale
41.100 (1928 to 1931) 		Type 41 Royale
41.100 (from 1932) and production models
Engine:  Eight-cylinder in-line engine
Displacement 14,720 cc 12,763 cc
Bore × stroke 125 × 150 mm 125 mm × 130 mm
power 220 kW (300 PS) at 3000 rpm.
Spark plugs 16
Valves 24
(3 per cylinder: 1 × inlet, 2 × outlet)
Valve control an overhead camshaft
Mixture preparation a Bugatti-Schebler twin carburetor
transmission Manual three-speed gearbox in front of the rear axle
frame Steel profile frame with x-shaped struts
Suspension in front Rigid axle with semi-elliptical springs
Rear suspension Rigid axle with two pairs of quarter elliptic springs
Brakes 4 drum brakes,
mechanically cast into the light alloy wheels using a cable
wheelbase 4530 mm 4300 mm
length 6000-6500 mm
width 1990-2030 mm
Weight 3000-3300 kg
Tires 24 inches
Top speed 200 km / h
consumption 37 liters per hour

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ coachbuild.com: Bugatti Type 41 Coach Kellner (1932)

Web links

Commons : Bugatti Type 41  - collection of images, videos and audio files

literature

  • "Big in Japan", driving report of the Bugatti 41 No. 41141 with purchase advice in: Motor Klassik No. 4/2002, p. 56 ff.
  • Conway, HG: "Les Grandes Marques: Bugatti", Octopus Books Ltd (1st edition), French translation, Gründ Verlag, Paris 1984, ISBN 2-7000-5175-8
  • Hildebrand, George (Ed.): The Golden Age of the Luxury Car - An Anthology of Articles and Photographs from Autobody , 1927–1931 ; Dover Publications, Inc .; 1980, ISBN 0-486-23984-5 (English)