Complete Description
- Continuous history
- All original main components
- Restored to ‘Grand Prix’ specification
- Sold with a report by the specialist Kees Jansen
- Fresh, no expenses saved restauration, ready to go
This Bugatti Type 37, chassis no. 37201 and engine no. 92, left the factory in August 1926 as a ‘Touriste’ model (a cabriolet which was better equipped for the road than the racing version, with lights, wings, full windshield and a starter), only a very few were t37 were delivered with this expensive works package. It was delivered on 10 September that year to the Bugatti dealer René Ring, in Strasbourg. Ring had ordered the same model three days earlier, for 43,000 francs, and therefore took advantage of the availability of this example, which had just been built. Its first owner, Pierre Larrige, lived nearby in Sélestat and wasted no time before collecting the car, which he used with the temporary registration number 1641 WW5, valid from 10–15 September 1926.
According to the history established by the specialist Kees Jansen, from which the information regarding the car has been taken, the car was damaged in an accident in 1930. It resurfaced not much later in Austria, where it was registered A 15-745 on 25 November 1932 in the name of Heinrich Opitz, a coachbuilder in Vienna. By then, it had been fitted with a new body, no doubt by Opitz, a cabriolet 2+2 with a scuttle with twin curves, substantial cycle wings, all the control levers inside the car and one door. The original bonnet, apron and sidepanels were reused, all of these are with the car until date, as is the Opitz door. In 1946, it was given the registration number A 13-363, still in the name of Heinrich Opitz.
It is likely that he died in 1952, as the car was transferred into the name of Magdalena Opitz, no doubt his wife or daughter. She evidently did not wish to keep it, as she consigned it to a scrap merchant, from where it was salvaged in 1954 by Herbert Lackner, a young engineer from Krems, in Austria. He stored it in a shed belonging to a neighbour, but, needing to reclaim the building, the neighbour later dismantled the car, put the mechanical components into storage and disposed of the rear of the second body in the Danube.
Nothing happened until Walter Ledl, the owner of a Bugatti Grand Sport (chassis no. 40721), who lived in Vienna, needed a water pump for his car and acquired all the parts from the Bugatti 37 in 1958. This purchase was mentioned to Hugh Conway in 1962, who recorded it in his Bugatti Register. After retrieving the water pump for his Grand Sport, Ledl kept all the mechanical components from the Type 37 for more than 40 years, until selling them in 2003 to René and Hans Winkler.
The two brothers were Austrian, but Hans, a classic car restorer, had married a British woman and gone to live in England. He gathered several missing parts (both old and remanufactured), but did not complete the restoration. The project was inspected on several occasions by the specialist David Sewell: on 26 October 2009, 4 July 2017 and 4 May 2018. Sewell mentioned that several jobs had been carried out, including chassis work by the renowned Bugatti specialist Malcolm Gentry. The radiator got a new core by Star Engineering. Spectacular to see is that over all those years the original ‘Molsheim-Alsace’ chassis plate, has never been removed from the scuttle. One of the special options of the touriste model was a 50L fuel tank, to accommodate for luggage in the tail. Fabrication of a 50-litre fuel tank was commissioned to Frank Underwood. A new body was constructed by Ivan Dutton Ltd, in the correct gauge aluminium as per factory standards, but in “grand prix” style. The Brothers Winkler opted for the pretty and typical Bugatti aluminium wheels, supplied new by Crosthwaite and Gardiner, over the original wire wheels, probably for aesthetic purposes. All original parts needed to return to the wire wheel setup, were kept, including a set of 5 wheels. And come with the car. Further they installed a higher-quality, Hardy Spicer drive shaft and commenced the restoration of the Bosch head and tail lights to the original specification aswell as the fitment of a complete set of instruments.
Photos © Peter Singhof
