This Bugatti Type 59/50s offset seat Grand Prix car is Chassis Number 2 and fitted with Engine Number 8. It was produced by the artisans of Automobiles Bugatti at Molsheim in Alsace from available parts of the period. Only such peripherals as the body paneling and tanks have been remade. This Bugatti is powered by a 4.9 liter straight-eight cylinder twin overhead camshaft power unit that began life as the Type 54 engine, previously used by works backed customer Count Stanislas Czaykowski to smash the World 1-Hour speed record at Berlins AVUS speedway circuit in 1933. The power unit is coupled to an up-rated gearbox deemed necessary to handle the much-enlarged engine’s extra power and torque. The gearbox drives the correct period made type of propeller shaft and gear driven back axle. Many of the components built into this car were concealed in a storeroom at the Molsheim factory in which they had been cached almost certainly just prior to the wartime German invasion.
