Having lost control of his factory in Alsace to occupying German forces in the 1939/45 war Ettoire Bugatti spent the duration making plans for a new post war facility in Paris and a Type 73 which was to be built in it.
The Type 73 was conceived with designers Noel Domboy and Antoine Pichetto to have a single overhead cam 4 cylinder 16 valve motor for sports car use and a twin overhead cam for racing purposes.
These alloy motors were unusual for Bugatti’s because they had detachable cylinder heads.
Plans for the new model called for the 500,000 FF racing models to be built in batches of 5 and one was first seen at the Paris Motor Show in October 1947.
However by this time Ettoire Bugatti had died and no further Type 73C’s were completed, the original car was stored, with the parts for four further Type 73C’s, never turning a wheel in anger.
In 1960 Bugatti dealer Jean de Dobbeleer in Brussels manage to acquire the parts for one of the five Type 73C chassis #73002 which became the first Type 73 to enter private hands. In 1962 #73002 was described by Hugh Conway of the Bugatti Owners Club as not ‘pur sang’, pure blooded.
It appears that the parts for #73005 were built up some time from the mid 1960’s. Today #73005 is run in VSCC events by Tom Dark, in these photo’s taken at the VSCC Spring Start meeting in the Silverstone paddock earlier this year the car was being prepared to race after being damaged during qualifying.
Thanks for joining me on this “Unfinished Prototype” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be visiting the Summer Classics meeting at Easter Compton. Don’t forget to come back now !
