1935 Bugatti Type 59/50S
The ultimate expression of the Bugatti Grand Prix car, the Type 59/50S was a testament to Ettore and Jean Bugatti’s extraordinarily creative engineering talents. In an era when the art of race car design was arguably superseded by the science, the Type 59/50S remained competitive despite its continued use of ‘old-fashioned’ mechanics. Though often defeated by its more modern government-funded rivals, its long, low and slender bodywork, have earned it a very special place in Grand Prix history. The Type 59/50S remains Bugatti’s last successful Grand Prix racer.
The Type 59/50S is generally regarded as an artistic masterpiece: it still retained the heritage from the iconic and all-conquering Type 35, which Ettore Bugatti had designed a decade earlier, but in extending the wheelbase of the new chassis frame, he created a beautiful Grand Prix car with perfect proportions.
This 1935 Bugatti Type 59/50S was assembled by marque restorer Ray Jones over several years in the style of the Type 59/50S driven by Robert Benoist in the 1935 Grand Prix de l’Automobile Club de France. Originally completed in the early 1990s, the build included the installation of the supercharged 4,972cc inline-eight that is said to have propelled Benoist’s 1935 Grand Prix entrant after having carried Count Stanislaw Czaykowski’s Type 54 to multiple speed records in 1933.
The piano-wire wheels are joined by splines to drilled center discs and are secured by two-eared knock-offs. Blockley tires measure 5.00-19 up front and 5.50/6.00-19 at the rear. Braking is handled via cable actuation on finned drums with drilled backing plates and ventilation scoops up front. Suspension incorporates semi-elliptical front leaf springs, inverted quarter-elliptical rear leaf springs, and four-wheel De Ram shock absorbers, the latter of which use hydraulic pressure to adapt friction dampening to the speed of lever-arm travel.
The cockpit houses a single seat situated on the right-hand side and wrapped in black upholstery. The passenger side is fitted with an aluminum tonneau panel and houses an engine oil reservoir linked to a cowl-mounted oil cooler. Features include a single windscreen, a faired rearview mirror, a handbrake lever to the driver’s left, and a shifter located outside the cockpit. The wood-rimmed steering wheel frames period instrumentation that is housed in a reproduction aluminum panel and includes a 6k-rpm tachometer and gauges monitoring fuel level, coolant temperature, and oil pressure. A Jaeger clock is mounted in the left side of the bulkhead.
Today, Type 59/50S are prized collector items and have estimated values in excess of £10 million. Just seven cars were built in Grand Prix configuration, of which four raced for the Bugatti works team and all have survived to this day. Current owners include Ralph Lauren and the industrial designer Marc Newson. One former Grand Prix chassis, converted to a sports car configuration back in the 1930s, sold at auction for £9.5 million in 2020.
