Bugatti · 1927–1933

Bugatti Type 41

The Bugatti Type 41, better known as the Royale, is a large luxury car built by Bugatti from 1927 to 1933, With a 4.3 m (169.3 in) wheelbase and 6.4 m (21 ft) overall length, it weighs approximately 3,175 kg (7,000 lb) and uses a 12.763 litre (778 cu in) straight-eight engine. For comparison, against the Rolls-Royce Phantom VII (produced from 2003 to 2017), the Royale is about 20% longer, and more than 25% heavier. This makes the Royale one of the largest cars in the world. It had a total production run of seven vehicles. Ettore Bugatti planned to build twenty-five of these cars and sell them to royalty as the most luxurious car ever, but the Great Depression undermined his effort: only three of the seven made were sold; six still exist, with one wrecked in a crash. Unused engines were installed in newly constructed high-speed railcars for the French National Railway (SNCF).

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Design

The Type 41 is said to have come about because Alsatian autobuilder Ettore Bugatti took exception to the comments of an English lady who compared his cars unfavourably with those of Rolls-Royce. Engine. The overhead cam straight 8 engine was based on an aero design that had been done for the French Air Ministry, but never produced. Its huge iron block was cast in one unit with an integrated cylinder head. At approx. 1.4 m (4.6 ft) long x 1.1 m (3.6 ft) high, it is physically one of the largest engines ever made for a passenger automobile; it also had one of the largest displacements,12.7 L (775 cu in), with each cylinder displacing more than the entire engine of the contemporary Type 40 touring car. It had a bore of 125 mm (4.9 in) and stroke of 130 mm (5.1 in), 3 valves per cylinder (two inlet:one exhaust) driven by a centrally positioned single overhead camshaft. Only three bearings and only a single custom carburettor was used. Output was 205–224 kW (275–300 hp) at 1800 rpm, and 875 lb⋅ft (1,186 N⋅m) of torque. Grinding of the engine valves was a regular maintenance requirement, and removing them required removing and disassembling the large monobloc engine. Chassis. The chassis featured a conventional semi-elliptic leaf spring suspension in front, and both forward and rear-facing Bugatti quarter-elliptic springs in the rear. In order to reduce noise an aluminium clutch box was attached to the chassis rather than the engine; and the aluminium gearbox was placed in the rear as a transaxle to offset the weight of the engine. Massive manual brakes were mechanically operated via cable controls, effective but requiring significant leg strength. The car's light alloy "Roue Royale" wheels measured 610 millimetres (24 in) in diameter, and were cast in one piece with the br

Production

In 1928, Ettore Bugatti asserted that "this year King Alfonso of Spain will receive his Royale", but the Spanish king was deposed in April 1931 without taking delivery of a Royale, and the first of the cars to find a customer was not delivered until 1932. The Royale with a basic chassis price of $30,000, was launched just as the world economy began to deteriorate into the 1930s Great Depression. Six Royales were built between 1929 and 1933, with just three sold to external customers. Intended for royalty, none was eventually sold to any royals, and Bugatti even refused to sell one to King Zog of Albania, claiming that "the man's table manners are beyond belief!" Six of seven production Royales still exist, as the prototype was destroyed in an accident in 1931, and each has a different body, some having been rebodied several times. 41100 - Coupé Napoleon. The first car is chassis number 41100, now known as the Coupé Napoleon. It originally had a Packard body. It was rebodied by Parisian coach builder Weymann as a two-door fixed head coupe. The Weymann body was replaced after the car was crashed by Ettore Bugatti, who in 1930 or 1931 fell asleep at the wheel travelling home from Paris to Alsace, necessitating a major rebuild. Bricked up with 41141 and 41150 during World War II at the home of the Bugatti family in Ermenonville, to avoid being commandeered by the Nazis. It remained in the family's possession, housed at their Ermenonville chateau, until financial difficulties forced its sale in 1963. It subsequently passed from L'Ebe Bugatti into the hands of Bugatti collector Fritz Schlumpf. Resides in the Musée National de l'Automobile de Mulhouse, alongside 41131 that the Schlumpf brothers had acquired from John Shakespeare. The 2011 recreation claims to use the original

Technical data

== Extended production == The famous Bugatti collectors, the Schlumpf brothers, liked the original Dr Armand Esders coupe body on chassis 41111, using original Bugatti parts they had a copy made of the car. It now resides with the two originals they purchased at the Musée National de l'Automobile de Mulhouse.

Replicas

Due to the rarity of the Type 41 and its associated price, a number of replicas have been made. The late Tom Wheatcroft commissioned Ashton Keynes Vintage Restorations (AKVR) to build an exact replica of Bugatti's personal car, the Coupe Napoleon (chassis number 41100), for his Donington Grand Prix Collection in England. It has since been sold and left the collection. So good was the replica, that when the Kellner car needed a replacement piston, its then Japanese owners commissioned South Cerney Engineering, part of AKVR, to provide a replacement. On May 24, 2008, Prince Joachim of Denmark on the day of his wedding to Princess Marie (formerly Marie Cavallier) had Wheatcroft's replica waiting outside Møgeltønder Church to drive the newly married couple to Schackenborg Castle. In 2011, a reconstruction of the 41100 Packard prototype by Dutch company Hevec Classics was presented at the Molsheim festival. It claims to use the original prototype chassis frame and other parts and was initially fitted with a replica engine (built by Tom Wheatcroft). In 2016, the same team that reconstructed the Packard prototype, led by Frank Slopsma, unveiled a new replica of the Royale Esders Roadster at the RETRO CLASSICS show in Stuttgart, Germany. A year later this same team showed a part-finished replica of the Weymann coach version of the 41100 Royale prototype at the Mondorf Classic Days & Concours d'Elegance. All three replicas built by the team were shown at the show, they were built for an undisclosed Dutch owner. The Sinsheim Auto & Technik Museum has a replica of the 41100 Coupe Napoleon that was built for the 1968 film Rebus. The much smaller Panther De Ville (produced between 1974 and 1985) consciously resembled the Type 41.

Reunion

In the 1985 Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, all six cars appeared together on display. In 2007, five of the six cars were on display at the Goodwood Festival of Speed to celebrate the Royale's eightieth anniversary.

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