Angela Hucke, Curator at The Bugatti Trust Museum
Join us for a deep dive into Bugatti history, heritage, and racing legacy as we broadcast directly from Prescott Hill Climb, one of the world's most iconic motorsport venues. Sitting down with Angela, curator of the Bugatti Trust, to uncover fascinating stories about Bugatti's past, from its pioneering engineering to its enduring influence on automotive design.
Whether you're a Bugatti enthusiast, a motorsport fan, or just love a good automotive story, this episode is packed with history, passion, and high-speed excitement.
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For over 20 years, Specialised Automotive Services has provided high-quality, affordable automotive maintenance and repairs. Featured in Lancashire Life and a recipient of their Auto Services Award, the company specialises in vintage and classic car restoration, auto electrical work, and general repairs. https://sas-autos.co.uk
Transcript
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Speaker A: -: Speaker A:I'm sat here, here surrounded by Bugatti real Bugattis at Prescott Hill Climb, one of the most historic motorsport venues in the country, if not probably the world if you think about it.
Speaker A:I'm also sat with Angela, curator of the Bugatti Trust, which has got to be the ultimate job for anybody into the finest vintage coys.
Speaker A:Angela, welcome to the Backseat Driver radio show.
Speaker B:Well, thank you very much for having me.
Speaker B:I'm very excited.
Speaker B:I get to talk about what I love most.
Speaker B:What about for my family, Bugatti's.
Speaker A:What exactly is the Bugatti Trust?
Speaker A:Because as its name implies, trust.
Speaker A:It is a charity.
Speaker B:It is a charity.
Speaker B:So the Bugatti Trust's full name is Bugatti Trust Museum and Study Centre.
Speaker B:It was founded and opened officially by Prince Philip actually 31 years ago.
Speaker B:And the aims and objectives of our charity are educational.
Speaker B:It's all about Bugattis and it's all about the vintage Bugattis, which I know.
Speaker A:You will not comment on this, but as I said, the real Bugattis.
Speaker B:I think that was a wonderful day, a wonderful way of starting the interview.
Speaker B:I just had a huge smile on my face which no one can see, but that's certainly the way to my heart.
Speaker A:The one thing about Bugatti is before we talk more about the trust, yes, Ettore was the youngest son of Carlo Bugatti is who was a superb furniture designer because there's examples of the furniture here.
Speaker A:His elder brother, Rembrandt Bugatti was a sculptor.
Speaker A:And the one place you can see one of Rembrandt's sculptures, although it's miniaturized, is the trumpeting elephant atop the radiator on what has got to be the most spectacular vintage limousine or two seater sporting vehicle, the famous Bugatti Royale.
Speaker B:Very true, very true.
Speaker B:You've got to think about the Bugatti family was a family from Milan, very artistic, all of them with various skill sets as you've just mentioned.
Speaker B:There was the sculptor, the furniture maker, the engineer, the painter.
Speaker B:I mean, so much talent in one family, but they're also hugely supportive of each other, they championed each other's work.
Speaker B:So when Ettore Bugatti built a car for kings, he felt the most special sculpture to have as a mascot on top of that massive bonnet and 12 litre engine was his brother's elephant.
Speaker A:I mean, the interesting thing is I've watched various little videos and films on Bugatti and read books and I think initially when Etori Moyati became an engineer, I think the rest of the family were a little bit shoved.
Speaker A:What's he doing?
Speaker B:Well, they were surprised it was him.
Speaker B:You see, the father, Carlo Bugatti, saw Rembrandt Bugatti as being the one going into engineering.
Speaker B:Ettore Bugatti was the one that had been sort of earmarked for a better word as the one who's going to go into art, the fine arts or maybe the decorative arts, the artistic one.
Speaker B:When in fact, and again respect to the family, they followed the strengths of the children.
Speaker B:Ettore went into engineering, self taught engineer with an apprenticeship at a very early age.
Speaker B:Rembrandt was the one who went into fine art.
Speaker A:And I've often heard Ettore Bugatti described as an intuitive engineer.
Speaker A:He'd look at a problem and just draw a quick sketch and say that's the solution to your problem.
Speaker A:Very few engineers now seem to think along those lines.
Speaker A:There seems to be, you need to have committees, you need to have various other things.
Speaker A:I mean you could turn around and say a modern day incarnation of a Tory.
Speaker A:Bugatti was atmospheric.
Speaker A:Is he going this because he used to just sit down and do a quick sketch and from there we have one of the most iconic cars in the world, the Mini.
Speaker A:But I mean I get the feeling because they were so all, they were so artistic and creative, their minds worked differently to most people's.
Speaker B:Their minds might have been different, but also the career paths were different.
Speaker B:So as the Bugatta, trust me named Museum and Study center says, a lot of the work we do is educational.
Speaker B:We've got educational aims and objectives, which means I get to work with engineering students from various universities.
Speaker B:In the UK now, these students have to learn specific parts of the curriculum as part of their engineering degree.
Speaker B:Ettore Bugatti didn't have that.
Speaker B:He got an apprenticeship at Prinetti and Stucki and then he worked for various other companies around the world.
Speaker B:He worked in Germany.
Speaker B:Well, he didn't actually work for Peugeot, but.
Speaker B:I'm sorry I interrupted, but I'm sat.
Speaker A:Next to a little engine.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:That Bugatti more or less designed and.
Speaker B:It says Pough on it.
Speaker B:And in the building, in the room next to where we're recording at the moment is a baby Pourgio.
Speaker B:But he wasn't employed by them.
Speaker B:He had a concept of a very small car that would sell well at an acceptable price.
Speaker B:Approached a German manufacturer, turned him down and he went to see Peugeot who thought, now this is brilliant, let's manufacture this.
Speaker B:It was a commercial success and allowed Ettore Bugatti to raise the money to set up his own factory.
Speaker B:He was meant not to work for other people.
Speaker B:He was briefly employed by Deutz in Cologne.
Speaker B:But there's a man who always was meant to be le patron, his own boss.
Speaker A:Now, the interesting thing is Bugatti's design of a small engine.
Speaker A:We've come full circle, apart from the fact there are the electric cars, but you look at now how many.
Speaker A:Peugeot, for example, my absolute pride and joy, my little Fiat Panda, four wheel drive, there's a two cylinder.
Speaker A:Look at Ettore Bugatti's concept for a small engine.
Speaker A:And small engines are now back in vogue.
Speaker B:But look at especially not just the smaller engines that he built during his lifetime.
Speaker B:And for racing, weight is the enemy.
Speaker B:He was always very keen on keeping things light.
Speaker B:But the last project, one of the last projects he was working on towards the end of his life when he was based in Paris during the war years, was a microcar called the Type 68.
Speaker B:Oh, so the Type 68.
Speaker B:The engine would sit quite comfortably on top of your iPad.
Speaker B:318cc two seater car, which was built been his vision for city traffic.
Speaker B:Because his vision of the future would be cities will grow, we'll all live in cities.
Speaker B:Petrol and fuel will be more and more expensive.
Speaker B:So we need small engines consuming very little fuel.
Speaker B:So the microcar was his vision of the future.
Speaker B: And that is back in: Speaker A:Right now, the one thing you know about, or I know about Bugatti Scos I've been fortunate enough to to visit Mulsheim, what I still refer to as the Schlumpf Museum of the Schlumpf collection Though it has a.
Speaker A:It slightly changed its name.
Speaker B:Well, it changed its name, but they keep the reference to the Schlomph Museum and the Schlompf collection.
Speaker B:So it's Cite d'l Automobile Collection Schlumpf, which is appreciating their heritage and why the collection is there in the first place.
Speaker A:But when you look at the bodywork designs and especially the engines, I mean, they're as much a work of art as they are an actual engine.
Speaker A:Nobody else designed engines like that.
Speaker A:I know an engine is an engine and the four cylinder petrol engine is a four cylinder petrol engine.
Speaker A:But when you look at something Bugatti designed and the interesting thing is the design became reality, it wasn't a case of, well, that's the design, but that's what you've ended up with because we can't do the design.
Speaker B:But you used the word intuitive earlier on.
Speaker B:The intuitive engineer in him had very clear solutions, design solutions to engineering problems.
Speaker B:And because he wasn't over trained in everyone else's engineering solutions and approaches, he just kept to what he knew and what is also why there were certain things he implemented right at the beginning of his production, which he kept all the way through the production because he found a good solution and he stuck with it.
Speaker B:And you were talking.
Speaker A:Ettore didn't know that wasn't.
Speaker A:You weren't meant to do it that way.
Speaker B:Well, I don't think he'd question it.
Speaker B:I think if he thought that's the way it should be done, that's the way it would be done.
Speaker B:And he was, as you said, someone who would do a quick sketch.
Speaker B:I had the opportunity as a teenager to work through the Roland Bugatti archives, which had been sold in France from the Ronald Bugatti estate.
Speaker B:And it had a huge amount of original sketches from Ettore Bugatti in his hand.
Speaker B:We've got them here at the Trust.
Speaker B:And what was particularly interesting, and in fact one of my family members noticed this, that there was a huge amount of sketches over Christmas and Easter because he was stuck at home and clearly would have been much rather be in the factory designing and creating.
Speaker B:So his output of sketches, doodles, which were all about cars, but also about how to redesign gloves, how to design.
Speaker B:In fact, if we get the chance, I'll show you one of the walls.
Speaker B:We have a selection of patents based on sketches and drawings he did.
Speaker B:There are nearly a thousand patents to his name.
Speaker A:So he designed gloves.
Speaker B:He designed a specific way of articulating gloves to make them more comfortable.
Speaker B:When you're racing or driving.
Speaker B:He designed a operating theater that was self sterilizing Venetian blinds, motorized, motorized fishing reel.
Speaker B:The man couldn't help himself.
Speaker B:He just had to invent, invent, invent and make better.
Speaker B:And then obviously he had a design department at the Bugatti factory where he would then hand over his designs and then they'd be turned into technical drawings.
Speaker A:I was just going to say, given the amount of designs he did, the design department would be relatively redundant to build.
Speaker B:No, the design department, there's a journey between the not doodle.
Speaker B:I don't want to disrespect le patron because they're not doodles.
Speaker B:There's so much more than that.
Speaker B:But between his sketches and innovations and then what would become a technical drawing that then the factory would work with here at the trust, when I said, we said museums, we do exhibitions, the research and study center element that might be on the museum and motoring organizations with perhaps more bigasses on display.
Speaker B:But we're the only organization that has the original technical drawing archive from the factory and make them available to the public.
Speaker B:So we've got 27,000 plus technical drawings of vintage Bugatti's that we make accessible to restorers, researchers, owners who want to repair their cars, work on their cars or just study something.
Speaker B:And all these drawings which would have come out of the technical drawing department at the Bugatti factory were scanned over a decade by some of our wonderful volunteers, which means we've got a digital archive we can do research on.
Speaker A:Now the question has to be asked.
Speaker A:Bugatti.
Speaker A:Most people conceive Bugatti as French, which technically they were.
Speaker A:They were manufactured in France.
Speaker B:Oh, we're assuming because the cars were racing in the blue French racing colour.
Speaker A:As well, but the Bugatti family were Italian.
Speaker A:How has all this information and history arrived in Prescott, in the Cotswolds, in Indians?
Speaker B:Well, according to classic and sports cars, we're between Bigatti's home from home.
Speaker B:So there is a very, very historic reason why we're all here celebrating le patron and bigasses here at Prescott.
Speaker B:And I know this story because my wonderful chairman, Hugh Conway shared it with me and he's been involved with the Bugatti story for decades.
Speaker B:During the years between the first and the Second World War, the economic situation for the countries in Europe, which not good compared to the uk.
Speaker B:So the UK was still buying Bugattis when a lot of other European countries were.
Speaker B:And Ettore Bugatti built up a very good relationship with his customers in England.
Speaker B:The oldest Bugatti owners club in the world is the British one, the Bugatti Owners Club, which just.
Speaker A:But again, whose premises are just across the road.
Speaker B:Just across the road.
Speaker B:So Dwigati Owners club founded their club, went to various.
Speaker B:I'm sure you can find a full version of this little story and anecdote I'm sharing with you because it is a wonderful story.
Speaker B:But the Bugatti owners Club so founded, decided to go to various places around the countryside, meet with Bugatti owners, race hills, drive tracks.
Speaker B:Eventually thought, you know what?
Speaker B:We perhaps we need our own premises so people can stop complaining about smelly, oily, noisy cars coming into their countryside.
Speaker B:Why don't we find some premises?
Speaker B:And the Vintage Sports Car Club joined forces with the Bugatti owners Club to buy Prescott Hill Climb.
Speaker B:So the Bugatti Owners Club is not only the oldest Bugatti owners club in the world, it's also the only one with premises.
Speaker B:And Prescott Hill Climb is a vibrant hill climb that has numerous events during the year.
Speaker B:You can buy tickets for.
Speaker B:You can see vintage Bugatti's race, you can see it very fast.
Speaker B:Modern hill climb cars go up they hill.
Speaker B:You can see supercars going up the hill.
Speaker B:Keep an eye on their website because it's fab.
Speaker B:And for us obviously I like racing.
Speaker B:The idea of a museum is a lot of the cars you will see here are on loan from owners who will lend them to us for a specific exhibition or a couple of months.
Speaker B:But then also they race them on the hill.
Speaker B:And that is such a vibrant way of interacting with our community.
Speaker A:I mean the interesting thing is the hill climb or hill climbing is the oldest and most original form of motorsport because I mean the Edwardians did it.
Speaker A:Because I interviewed the guy that wrote the book on Crossleys which talks about hill climbing.
Speaker B:Hill climbing is for anyone who wants to dip their toes into motorsport and racing.
Speaker B:For example, Prescott runs a hill climbing school.
Speaker B:And the way you can book a school day at Silverstone, you learn how to race, but it's you on your own against the clock, one person at a time.
Speaker B:So if the idea of racing on a track with 10 other people, where you have to navigate the car, control the track layout, but also the traffic in front of you and behind you, which frankly bit terrifying, not when you're hill climbing, it's just you and the hill.
Speaker B:So it's you against the clock and yourself and whatever your brain is trying to tell you at this ride, it's exhilarating.
Speaker B:And it's also Very much.
Speaker B:You know, all told to live in the moment.
Speaker B:You're never more in the moment than when you're sitting on the starting line waiting for the light to go green and you go up that hill as fast as possible.
Speaker B:It's great fun.
Speaker A:Now, the interesting thing is to return to Bugatti.
Speaker B:You must return to Bugatti.
Speaker A:The archetypal Bugatti is the type 35, the famous French blue racing car.
Speaker A:But I mean, over the years, and you have examples of the drawings, Bugatti produced a whole cross section of core types.
Speaker A:He did, and we did trains, we did everything else.
Speaker B: l, this brings us back to the: Speaker B:He was a man who was just fascinated by everything and also a strong belief that he possibly could do it better than most, if not all.
Speaker B:So he designed airplanes.
Speaker B:There was a boat.
Speaker B:There was a boat which is being restored at the moment.
Speaker B:And hopefully we'll come to a very, very quiet lake near anyone soon set a new world record maybe for an original Bugatti boat with a historic Bugatti engine.
Speaker B:He was into so many things.
Speaker B:The trains were a survival story of the factory, actually, at that point, because the Royale Bugatti, that marque you mentioned earlier on, which was built for Kings with a 12 liter engine, but new king ever bought one, at the end of the day, those engines were put into rail cars and sold to the French government and very successfully did transport people between Paris and the south of France, or Marseille and Nice.
Speaker B:And that commercial success of that deal with the government helped Bugatti carry on with the factory when a lot of other things weren't selling anymore, and the variety of cars.
Speaker B:In fact, we're sitting in the room where we have the Brescia exhibition at the moment, and the Bugatti Brescia was a very small racing car and not called Bugatti Brescia.
Speaker B:When he first introduced it, it was called a type 13.
Speaker B:Ettore was known for giving type numbers to his various cars.
Speaker B: oduced to the racing world in: Speaker B:And no one had ever seen anything that small and that powerful and efficient.
Speaker B:It didn't do particularly well at Lyon, but after that went on to win everything.
Speaker B: But going back to: Speaker B:Very small, but yout race he turned up with four cars, four Type 13s, and he placed first, second, third and fourth and some examples are here right behind us.
Speaker B:Very small cars, not a lot of body on them.
Speaker B:You must imagine that the racing drivers all head riding mechanics which with them who tended to be 14 year olds, because that frankly just is no space in the car for anyone else, just nothing.
Speaker A:There's no room for two fat lads like me.
Speaker B:I think it depends on how snug you like your racing experience.
Speaker B:Frankly.
Speaker B:If you're racing, your arms are busy, the roads weren't what they are nowadays, and your riding mechanic might be pumping to pressurize various parts of the car.
Speaker B:You're busy, you need to be able to move your arms.
Speaker B:So anyway, so coming back to the different models, Ettore Bugatti placing first, second, third and fourth with these cars.
Speaker B:And Ernst Friedrich, he was one of the most key people in his factory, drove the winning car.
Speaker B:After that he thought, what a commercial success.
Speaker B:Fabulous.
Speaker B:Let's call the model the Brescia.
Speaker B:And if you think the factory sold 8,000 cars roughly in total, 2,000 of those were Brescias.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:But not all brescias were type 13s and he put different bodies on them.
Speaker B:But that success of the name Brescia allowed him to sell so many cars with different bodywork, some less, some more comfortable.
Speaker B:And that was his incredible knack for marketing.
Speaker B:And then some of the more beautiful cars towards the later years of the factory.
Speaker B:Actually, when you study who designed them, probably his son, Jean Bugatti, who had a wonderful eye for artistry and engineering.
Speaker A:Because I may say before, before we return to this, the one that I have always loved as regards, shall we say, a two door, two seater.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:The one you want to jump into is the Atlantic.
Speaker B:Is it?
Speaker B:You see, for me It's a type 55.
Speaker A:I just love the.
Speaker A:I mean, when you look at the design, to join the two sections of bodywork together, they.
Speaker A:They riveted a spine down the top and made a feature out of it.
Speaker A:Once you look at it, you think that is just stunning.
Speaker A:Normally if anybody did that today, they'd be heavily criticized.
Speaker A:In all probability we'll look at the state of that.
Speaker B:But no one's criticizing.
Speaker B:The Bugatti design is still to date one of the most celebrated designs in the whole of the output of the.
Speaker A:Factory, which I memor.
Speaker A:I think Ralph Lauren owns one.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:And one.
Speaker B:That specific car was in the ownership of one of our previous chair people.
Speaker B:Oh, really?
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:So, so the.
Speaker B:I think the beauty of Bugatti is the variety in his output, but always with that eye for beautiful lines.
Speaker B:And one of the challenges we did, or in this world, I'm using you, hopefully.
Speaker B:My.
Speaker B:I said we work with different universities and we create design challenges for them.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So one of the universities we work, we work with Bath, we sponsor their Formula Student team, we work with Coventry, we've got connections with Loughborough, Birmingham, you name it.
Speaker B:Formula Student is something we passionately support because it's such a wonderful way for young people to get involved in motorsport and engineering.
Speaker B:So coming back to Coventry, we also work with the, the humanities faculty and the design team there, which is incredibly dynamic, whether that's automotive design, product design or interior design.
Speaker B:And about four years ago we had 45 of those students come here and, you know, you were talking about how designers today work and Ettore worked.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:What we love with the universities we work with when we do design challenges, they all have a moment where it's pen to paper and they have a moment where they just sketch and they can choose to sketch an engine or they can choose to sketch a Bugatti elephant just to feel that connection with the motion of pencil on the paper, just as Ettore Bugatti would have done it.
Speaker B:But the challenge that year was based on coffee.
Speaker B:We all like coffee.
Speaker B:So the automotive design had to come up inspired by the beautiful lines of Vittorio Bugatti's artwork, had to create a coffee van.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker B:Interior design had to come up with a pop up coffee boutique product design, had to create a coffee machine design.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:And hand on heart, the products that came out of it were beautiful.
Speaker B:And there was one particular student who'd created a design for a coffee machine hugely influenced by the visuals of Carlo Bugatti.
Speaker B:And it was just a thing of beauty.
Speaker B:I mean, just the thing of beauty.
Speaker B:And that's.
Speaker B:I know that, you know, each university we work with, we do an annual prize with them as well.
Speaker B:They go on to do good things.
Speaker B:So I know that particular student, he works for a leading mobile phone manufacturer, but he's been exposed to the aesthetics according to Bugatti.
Speaker B:And whether that's Ettore Bugatti or Jean or Carlo or Rembrandt.
Speaker B:Our really, you know, brings the joy to my job here is to see these groups of whether they're students or school children.
Speaker B:Last year we worked with 300 kids from business school.
Speaker B:Is see them.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Enthused about something they normally wouldn't come across.
Speaker B:And that 100 years later, Tory Bugatti can still excite people and not just because of the racing successes.
Speaker A:Now when these, shall we say, design Challenges take place.
Speaker B:Place, yes.
Speaker A:Do you look for what you might call.
Speaker A:I know you just mentioned it.
Speaker A:Do you look for a Bugatti influence in what they've designed?
Speaker B:I don't look for Bugatti influence, I look for Bugatti awareness.
Speaker B:I mean, there was someone, one of the students had clearly not looked at anything in the museum and.
Speaker B:And his coffee machine looked like the dashboard of a modern supercar.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And if that's what he loves, of course, fabulous.
Speaker B:But from a learning experience, clearly not connected, but that's very rare.
Speaker B:What I'm looking for is just to feel that even if they don't absorb it or show it in the work, that comes out.
Speaker B:At least an acknowledgement.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:We also had one year where we asked interior design students to build a fictional annex.
Speaker B:You know, I quite like an additional annex where we can have learning activities.
Speaker B:You know, when I sit quietly at my desk thinking, what can we do in 10 years time?
Speaker B:And several students again working with one of the.
Speaker B:Again, Coventry.
Speaker B:One of the students not only had designed the most fabulous computer generated model of an annex, she'd created a fly through of the fictional annex, highlighting design features she'd picked up on Etore.
Speaker B:Bugatti was very keen on horses.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:So she'd introduced stable elements in some of the woodwork, the radiators.
Speaker B:If you look at some of the radiators, the hexagon, the sort of.
Speaker B:If you look at the grid formation on the radiator, it's like the honeycomb shapes.
Speaker B:She'd introduced that in the lighting and the skylights and it was just exquisite.
Speaker B:And you think, here is someone.
Speaker B:If you hire someone.
Speaker B:We were the fictional client for the university.
Speaker B:If you hire someone and you give them a brief, you.
Speaker B:You want to see your brief reflected in their work.
Speaker B:And I think that's what we're looking for when we work with students, at least an acknowledgement of the brief.
Speaker B:Because if they go into industry and completely disregard the brief, that's not employable.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:Because if you've been employed to do that, you're unemployable technically.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:But at the same time, it's good if they learn that at university rather than when they go into industry.
Speaker B:So I think it's a huge honor to teamwork with universities for, you know, for future careers.
Speaker A:Now, the interesting thing is you mentioned stables, because the one thing Bugatti tend to be known for, though it doesn't appear on every one of their cars, is the horseshoe grill or horseshoe shaped grill.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:Because Etori was Passionate about his horses.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:Which if memory serves and I'll.
Speaker A:I know I'll get this wrong, my friend.
Speaker A:My friend in San Trope will.
Speaker A:Will admonish me for this.
Speaker A:Marie Katharine.
Speaker A:Is it Le Persang, which is pure blood, but I probably said pursang roll.
Speaker B:Well, that there's a literal translation and there's the actual translation.
Speaker B:So Le pursant, if you just translate word by word, is the pure blood.
Speaker A:Y.
Speaker B:But actually a pursant in French language is a thoroughbred.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Like you talk about a horse who is a thoroughbred.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Who's built for racing.
Speaker B:So he, he referred to his racing stables in Ecurie de course.
Speaker B:He's not the only one.
Speaker B:I mean that's what racing stables were called at the time.
Speaker B:But what I love is the alternative theories about the radiator shape.
Speaker B:So someone was saying to me recently about the egg shape.
Speaker B:Carlo Bugatti, his father was obsessed with the egg shape because he felt it was one of the most perfect shapes found in the eggshell.
Speaker A:It's considered to be one of nature's perfect designs, isn't it?
Speaker B:You know, we all like an egg perfect.
Speaker A:If you squeeze it sideways, it'll smash.
Speaker A:But you'd be surprised if you stand it, shall we say pointy end up the.
Speaker A:The strength that they have is incredible.
Speaker B:It is, it's.
Speaker B:It's a thing of beauty from a design point of view.
Speaker B:Visually pleasing all the rest of it.
Speaker B:So Clara Bigatti liked the egg shape and you'll find it in his furniture and silverware, all the other objects he worked with.
Speaker B:But you also find it in the bre Radiator.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Because it is egg shaped.
Speaker A:More, more than horseshoe shaped shape.
Speaker B:So you know.
Speaker B:But then they're also like with every car manufacturer there, as many stories as there are legends and urban myths.
Speaker B:And a huge joy of my job here certainly is that over.
Speaker B:You know, every day there'll be something you learn which is new.
Speaker B:So undiscovered.
Speaker B:Some sometimes unfounded and sometimes well researched.
Speaker B:And is 100 years later, we're still the study element of our title of the museum is still very much active.
Speaker A:Now after, shall we say, a Tory Bulgati, there was his famous son Jean, who regretted that he was killed in a car crash.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:Who had been to Prescott.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:A couple of weeks before he died for the inaugural international Bugatti meeting of the Bugatti Owners club here.
Speaker B:And Jean Bugatti was in fact, you hear that a number of times from manufacturers.
Speaker B:Jean Bugatti had been banned from racing by his father, because racing was exceedingly dangerous.
Speaker B:It still is, but I mean, if you look at the survivor in the background, it was really, I mean, terrific, horrific.
Speaker B:So the fact that he died testing a Le Mans car, it's just tragic.
Speaker B:And Jean Bugatti was the hope for the future of the factory.
Speaker B:He had his father's charm with people, but also talent with the cars.
Speaker B:He was a natural born leader.
Speaker B:And he was put in charge of the factory at the age of 24.
Speaker B:You know, that's like his father.
Speaker B:He's a young prodigy, really.
Speaker B: ttier came here with the Type: Speaker B:It belongs to the Schlompf Museum and we briefly had it here on loan two years ago for our exhibition.
Speaker B:But Jean Bugatti, coming back to the tragic night he died, he was testing a Le Mans car and they closed the roads.
Speaker B:It was an evening test.
Speaker B:They specifically closed all the roads in the area.
Speaker B:And he was with Le Grand, Robert the Great.
Speaker B:Robert, the sort of chief mechanic and engineering wizard of the factory.
Speaker B:And a postman on a bicycle pulled out of a side road and Jean swerved to avoid hitting him and went straight into a tree and died there in Roberto Metre's arms.
Speaker B:And we have the opportunity to have a really good connection with Le Grand, Robert's son, who was here for our exhibition as well.
Speaker B:And to hear him tell the story from his father and that, it's just horrific.
Speaker B:And the factory's future sort of ended there.
Speaker B:Jean was not a single child.
Speaker B:You know, Ettore had other children.
Speaker B: There was another boy born in: Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Or that vision.
Speaker A:Now, the interesting thing is I said to most people, the Bugatti line stops at Jean Bugatti because they don't know about the rest.
Speaker A:And that's something I found out.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:There are quite a lot of Bugatti descendants, aren't there, that are all very active.
Speaker B:They're very active and they're keen and involved and very much engaged in the vintage Bugatti community internationally.
Speaker B:So Ettore Bugatti remarried late in life and had two further children.
Speaker B:So Therese and Michel Bugatti, who've all been here.
Speaker B:Michel came to the opening of the trust 31 years ago and they have children who love Bugattis and they have children.
Speaker B:But Ettore Bugatti's granddaughter, Caroline, is probably the one most involved in the car scene.
Speaker B:So her father is Michel Bugatti, so son of Vittore from his second marriage, Caroline manages La no Durand, which is a racetrack in the northeast of France, and organizes regular events there.
Speaker B:She also races.
Speaker B:She did the Rally des Gazelle in the desert in Africa and really, really supports any kind of historic respect and heritage initiative for Bugatti.
Speaker A:So the family are still involved, then?
Speaker A:This is quite interesting.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:Given how much Bugatti information you have.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:Do you ever find they consult you for things?
Speaker B:Well, yes, but that's often the way, isn't it?
Speaker B:Because especially if you think that a lot of things were sold, for example, in the.
Speaker B:In the 70s when the estate was being sold, you're not.
Speaker B:It's just the way it is with families.
Speaker B:And I think our mission here, we're trust, we're charity.
Speaker B:Our mission really is to share information, to make it accessible, whether you're a descendant of the family or you're someone who's come across a Bugatti model and you think it's the prettiest thing you've ever seen.
Speaker B:Let's learn more about it.
Speaker B:Or you come in and you say, actually, I'm not interested.
Speaker B:And cars at all, but my word, I love animal sculpture.
Speaker B:Can I find out more about Raymond Bugatti?
Speaker B:That's what we want to do.
Speaker B:We want to share the knowledge here.
Speaker B:And you don't have to be a member.
Speaker B:I mean, we love people joining the trust.
Speaker B:Obviously, we have a membership scheme and it's good for us because the income helps us work with schools and universities, we sponsors do, we sponsor things.
Speaker B:So it's a useful income for us.
Speaker B:But you don't have to be a member to do your research here or to come and visit.
Speaker B:And again, it's all part of being accessible, which really matters to us.
Speaker B:And Hugh Conway Sr.
Speaker B:Whose collection of documents was the basis of the Bugatti Trust all these decades ago.
Speaker B:That's what he had as a vision for the Trust.
Speaker B:He wanted it to be educational and open and accessible.
Speaker B:And he was actually managing director for Rolls Royce.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Also, you've got something probably in your wallet that he designed because he was so passionate about engineering and design and like Ettore, always had a pencil in his pocket.
Speaker B:He designed the 50p coin.
Speaker B:Oh, yes.
Speaker B:Which we all use and hopefully will keep on using for a long time.
Speaker B:I'm not ready for it all being plastic and electronic.
Speaker B:But he was very much involved with the British Design Council, which is.
Speaker B:And had this passion for education, which is also why Prince Philip came to open the Bugatti Trust.
Speaker B:Prince Philip, the very moving day of his funeral.
Speaker B:The people interviewed in the studio afterwards were all talking about his love for the next generation and enthusing the future generations of engineers and designers.
Speaker B:And he had made a promise to Hugh, convince Senior to come and open the trust.
Speaker B:Hugh convince Senior passed away before the actual completion of this.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Prince Philip still came nice and honoured the promise he had made.
Speaker B:So, yeah, very special.
Speaker A:Now, I know full well you are fortunate enough to drive Bugatti.
Speaker B:Well, not every day.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:I don't want to paint a picture here that the job comes with.
Speaker B:With regular.
Speaker A:It doesn't come with a com decor.
Speaker A:We might have a Bugatti Bad Johnny, but that's as near as it gets because it won't be.
Speaker B:Well, mine's got a Bugatti Trust badge on it, but.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:What are they like to drive?
Speaker A:I mean, I've been fortunate that I've driven, shall we say, Bugatti's greatest adversary, Bentley.
Speaker A:The green.
Speaker B:The green jobs and I would have thought, exhilarating drive.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:So much power, so much pull.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, but they're a big be.
Speaker A:Ettore described them as, what was it?
Speaker A:The world's fastest truck.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:I try not to mention that I don't, you know, it's my place.
Speaker B:I.
Speaker B:I'm lucky enough I'm allowed to comment on Bugatti's, but I wouldn't, you know, go and comment on other people's.
Speaker A:What's a Bugatti like to drive?
Speaker A:I get the feeling, looking at them, it's the complete antithesis of driving a proper wo Bentley.
Speaker B:Well, Bugattis are absolutely extraordinary to drive.
Speaker B:They're built for driving pleasure.
Speaker B:They're light, they handle well.
Speaker B:I've driven a variety of models, I've driven racing cars, I've driven touring cars.
Speaker B:And personally, as you know, giving you a little bit of an opinion, I shouldn't be biased, my heart is racing cars.
Speaker B:I like GP cars.
Speaker B:The way the GP cars are built, people rally with them.
Speaker B:You know, some of the bigger touring cars, I have one of our contacts, he drives a Type 50 Le Mans Bugatti and pulls his Type 35 behind it.
Speaker B:Now, that's the way to go racing.
Speaker B:That is the way to go racing.
Speaker B:Our chairman drove his Bugatti east coast to west coast, across America.
Speaker A:Yep.
Speaker B:Without a breakdown.
Speaker B:I mean, he didn't do it in a week.
Speaker B:Took a bit longer.
Speaker B:But that is how drivable they are a hundred years later and sitting in a Car such as a Type 50 Strike 3, which was a four wheel drive Bugatti on the starting line at Prescott.
Speaker B:Not to 60 in under five seconds.
Speaker B:When you engage first gear and you come off the starting line.
Speaker B:I don't think I'd live till then, you know, even though I probably had to grunt my way up the hill like a tennis player to corner.
Speaker B:All that power and.
Speaker B:And car, they are exhilarating.
Speaker B:And because of the noise and the smells, it really involves all the senses, your ears and you know, Bugatti will tell you if you're in the wrong gear.
Speaker B:I mean a lot of vintage cars do, especially if you go to a venue like Prescott where the acoustics are such that if you really get it wrong, the whole paddock will tell you afterwards.
Speaker B:Did you mean to be in that gear?
Speaker B:Maybe I can't remember.
Speaker B:It was all a blur.
Speaker B:But again, I mentioned early on about living in the moment, driving a vintage.
Speaker B:Not just a driving vintage cars.
Speaker B:It's so much connecting with everything and driving in the moment, whether you're on the road, on a track, you hear, feel, smell, see everything, which is so fantastically lacking in my day drive, in most people's day drive because you're so disconnected from the engine and the exterior.
Speaker A:You don't have to go into detail.
Speaker A:But I have to ask you, what's your everyday car?
Speaker B:Now we're going to detail.
Speaker B:It's a.
Speaker B:It has got four wheel drive because I live in a hilly part of England where if it snows the slightest little bit, we have snow for about a month.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And it accelerates enough so that, you know, I do enjoy my drive.
Speaker B:Not breaking the speed limit, obviously.
Speaker A:Nobody breaks.
Speaker B:But it really isn't the most interesting.
Speaker B:It does.
Speaker B:It does what it should do really.
Speaker B:It gets me to work.
Speaker B:But is it exciting?
Speaker A:Doesn't require a lot of thought to do it really.
Speaker B:I'd like to think it makes me better at work because obviously I can spend my drive to work planning my day at work.
Speaker B:But no.
Speaker B:Is it exciting?
Speaker B:Of course not.
Speaker B:Not compared to it.
Speaker B:Not compared to a vintage car ever.
Speaker A:If somebody wants to become involved.
Speaker A:Because that's the other thing.
Speaker A:If you join the trust, you don't.
Speaker A:Unlike the owners club, where it's a bit mandatory that you own one.
Speaker B:Well, actually, no.
Speaker B:Actually no.
Speaker B:You see, it's that you need to join the owners club if you want to race and hill climb.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:But you don't need to come racing.
Speaker B:A lot of people come here, they don't race their Bugatti.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:So it's not.
Speaker B:See it.
Speaker B:It has the word owners in the title, but.
Speaker B:But it isn't.
Speaker A:But how do people get.
Speaker A:Get in contact?
Speaker A:How do they get involved?
Speaker A:And anybody who's interested in Bugatti, I mean, this is the place to.
Speaker A:To visit at least once.
Speaker A:But if you become a member, you don't become a member of a trust, you make a charitable donation, which is very welcome.
Speaker B:Yes, the Bugatti Trust.
Speaker B:We are.
Speaker B:As I mentioned before, we are charities.
Speaker B:So you can join us as a member.
Speaker B:And the membership means you can come throughout the year without paying admission.
Speaker B:Normally we function like any museum.
Speaker B:You have to pay an admission fee at the door.
Speaker B:And as a member, you don't get charged.
Speaker B:You get a regular new in print, not just digitally proper printed paper with colour pages, which I'm showing Martin now.
Speaker B:Exhibit A.
Speaker B:Look at this.
Speaker A:Nicely produced.
Speaker B:Nice.
Speaker B:What we like to think so, with articles that are specifically written for us.
Speaker B:You wouldn't see them in other publications by leading motoring authors who specialize in the field, but we also try and invite people to write about different topics.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:So there might be a very technical article about gearboxes in a specific type, but next to it, recently we've had an article about Bugatti bicycles in Czechoslovakia.
Speaker B:Fabulous.
Speaker B:No one knew much about it and we had some other.
Speaker B:Well, I'll give you a couple of magazines.
Speaker B:So you get this magazine.
Speaker B:We do electronic newsletters, but we also organize events for our members where we go and see other museums, where we go and do like a rally day.
Speaker B:And the rally day will be.
Speaker B:There might be some Bugatti, there might be a whole lot of other cars.
Speaker B:The idea is that you join an organization where we're passionate about the work we do.
Speaker B:And owning a Bugatti.
Speaker B:Well, nice for you, if you have one, but it's really.
Speaker B:Absolutely not a requirement at all.
Speaker B:It's more joining in the fun of using Bugatti to enthuse the future.
Speaker A:Angela, curator of the Bugatti, the Bugatti Trust.
Speaker A:It's been a pleasure chatting to you.
Speaker A:Thanks very much for joining me on the Backseat Driver radio show.
Speaker B:Thank you very much.
