javier romagosa
When one writes about it Bugatti royale don't know where to start. It is a real colossus, rather a titan, probably the car most luxurious ever made. Ettore Bugatti's idea was to build the car of kings and the truth is that he did not skimp on resources.
6,4 meters in length and a battle of almost 5, three tons of weight. Aviation-derived 8-liter inline 12,7-cylinder engine with gearbox on the rear axle. All the comforts, though not necessarily mechanical - non-servo and cable-operated brakes, for example. at a price of heart attack: $ 30.000. Among others, these figures make today's most luxurious vehicles pale ...
When the Bugatti Royale was introduced in 1926 the standard he thought of making about 25 units. However, the Great Depression he ruined his intentions and only made 6. He sold three, and one of the remaining copies in Molsheim was the prototype, with which soon had an accident after falling asleep at the wheel.
A Bugatti Royale reborn from a discarded chassis
La 'pineapple' it was fat and had to be rebuilt, even replacing the chassis. The car was reborn as Coupe Napoleon, which is probably the unit that comes to mind when we think of the Royale. Before the accident, she had been wearing a Weymann body and, originally, a Packard dress of the time.
Well well, And what happened to the original frame of the car? According to report The Old Engine y hemmings, Among others, the chassis was found in the United States and, after certifying its authenticity, the lucky owners got down to work to create what is probably the most authentic replica of the model, of which there are two more.
It took nothing more and nothing less than 15 years, the precise time to collect all the possible original parts -not an easy task in the case of a Royale- and remanufacture the rest. But best of all, they recorded the restoration process and the TRAILER is amazing.
A big remanufacturing
It is in English, I know, but from their faces and the way they speak it will not be difficult for you to understand how they feel about him. Royal. Both the owners and the Dutch workshop in charge of the remanufacturing, Hevec Classic Cars, consider it at all times as a work of art that it has to be perfect. For this they work in the old fashioned way and revive the precision of Bugatti wonderfully.
It is a joy to see the images of the find, the search, the assembly and the different artisan processes carried out by the team. No less impressive is diving in the 2.000 planes of the Bugatti Trust used as a reference to remanufacture everything necessary and admire how, 85 years later, recreate the photo of the pattern with their prototype.
And we say 85 years because apparently the culmination of the process was in 2011, but we had not seen this video up to now. We have reasons to think that neither do you, so here we leave it ...…
