Bugatti Royale: Six Objects of Desire

It is clear that Ettore Bugatti did not do things like other manufacturers and wanted the most exclusive car, one that no other manufacturer could replicate, to bear his name. And that its owners would be some of the crowned heads. But history marked other destinies.

Ettore Bugatti built only six complete Royale chassis. Each of them, as was the house's norm, would receive a serial number corresponding to the project's order in the brand's chronology, followed by a production order of the same.

Thus, the Royale was the Type 41 and the first of the specimens built was the 41100. This first chassis had a wheelbase of 4.57 meters (longer than the total length of a 2024 Mercedes-Benz A 180 Sedan) and featured an 8-cylinder inline engine with a displacement of 14,726 cc. This 41100 was, in fact, a prototype initially equipped with a modified Packard body, which was replaced by a second body inspired by horse-drawn carriages. A third body, also of equestrian inspiration, would follow. And Ettore Bugatti would have this chassis bodied for the fourth time at Weyman, in the form of a coach.

An accident in 1930 required a complete reconstruction of the car on a new chassis, with a "reduced" wheelbase of 4.30 meters (as in the rest of the Royale) and a 12,763 cc engine. The chassis number was retained, and a body designed by Jean Bugatti, a Coupé de Ville type, sometimes referred to as "Coupé du Patron" or "Coupé Napoléon," terms also used in the second body of the first prototype, was mounted. It was in this format that it remained in the hands of the Bugatti family and at the Molsheim factory until Fritz Schlumpf acquired it in the spring of 1963 for 120,000 francs (about 200,000 euros today).

Hans and Fritz Schlumpf were one of France's great fortunes, with a textile empire based in Alsace. Their passion, almost an obsession, for vintage cars in general and especially for Bugattis, led them to acquire these by the dozen (they sent a purchase offer letter to all Bugatti owners...). And they secretly built a spectacular museum inaugurated in May 1966, attended by a few privileged individuals.

Seven years later, the Schlumpfs suspended payments and closed the spinning mill. Three thousand employees were left without work. A long and hard social conflict erupted. In March 1977, the workers invaded the factory and reached warehouses to which they were usually denied access. Before their eyes appeared the Schlumpf treasure: 550 collection vehicles acquired between 1939 and 1974 at a total estimated cost of 6.737 billion francs. For the workers, above all, those cars were the origin of their job loss. Some groups proposed the destruction of the collection. Fortunately, the union leaders and the works council took the initiative to open the collection to the public as a people's museum.

Beyond any other consideration, thanks to the Schlumpfs, France today has the "Musée National de L'Automobile-Collection Schlumpf" in Mulhouse. Of enormous tourist attraction, it is a center for the dissemination of culture for vintage and classic cars, of professions related to their conservation, and which has, among other vehicles of different brands with unique specimens, the largest and most complete collection of Bugatti in the world. And the jewel of the collection, the Royale 41.100, with some modifications made by the Schlumpfs, such as the interior upholstery, door openers, or blue paint on the sides. Today, its price is incalculable but, in any case, declared in 1978, along with the Royale 41131, which we will discuss below, and two hundred eighty-five other vehicles as "monuments historiques," it can never leave French territory.

On September 10, 2011, on the occasion of the XXVIII Bugatti Festival, organized at the Bugatti Messier factory, a copy of the first long-wheelbase Royale chassis 41100 was presented. This reconstruction by the Dutch company Hevec Classics, with the advice of specialists such as Paul Kestler or Daniel Lapp, was carried out (always according to its creators) "from the remains of the original chassis discovered in the United States."

This claim is the source of several discussions. Pat Garnier, former director of the National Automobile Museum of Mulhouse and an authority in the field of Bugatti, denies that this "Prototype Packard," as it was presented, has any legitimacy to be included in the genealogical tree of the Royale. He doubts that the remains of the crashed chassis 41100 were found in the United States eighty years later. And he insists that the crashed chassis was unusable, and that is why Ettore used the same chassis number for the Coupé du Patron, or Coupé Napoléon. "If Ettore Bugatti had wanted to maintain the legal existence of the crashed chassis by retaining its numbering plate 41100, he would have assigned another number in the 41000 series to the new chassis. To claim today that the number 41100 belongs to a different chassis than the Coupé Napoléon displayed at the National Museum of Mulhouse is a reflection of a deceptive operation."

Other experts claim that the only element of this "Prototype Packard" originating from Bugatti's history is its fabulous eight-cylinder, 13-liter engine, almost certainly recovered in Grenoble, where several blocks from the "Autorailes Bugatti" were stored. Only the placement of some external parts of this engine differentiated the block used in the Royale from those used in the aforementioned autorails.

Yes, autorails. The extraordinary Type 41 engine, which developed up to 300 hp at 1,800 rpm, was capable of accelerating the 3.5-ton Type 41 to a top speed of 200 km/h. Among the advanced features of the engine were overhead camshafts that operated three valves per cylinder, combustion chambers with two spark plugs each, and an advanced dry sump lubrication system, as in racing cars. Ettore Bugatti had twenty-five of these engines built for the Royale. But since only six complete cars were made, he came up with the idea of creating a new type of very fast train thanks to its lightness and aerodynamics, to make use of the rest of the engines manufactured. This very innovative train reached speeds of up to 196 km/h. In the 1950s, these trains ceased to operate, and several of the fabulous engines that powered them, created for the Royale, remained there...

In any case, the reconstruction of this Royale with the elements of the Packard Eight bodywork is splendid.

The second Royale is the 41111. It was born in 1931, designed by Jean Bugatti and Joseph Walter, commissioned by the Belgian magnate, of French nationality, Armand Esders. Passionate about sailing, airplanes, and automobiles, Esders did not like driving at night and requested that his car have no headlights that would break the clean lines of his roadster. Even so, Bugatti had provided a beautiful box in the trunk where two large headlights were stored to be mounted when the chauffeur, not Esders, drove at night.

Then the car was sold to the press magnate and politician Raymond Patenôtre, son of Jules Patenôtre, French ambassador in Washington and later in Madrid. Raymond, a figure of significant influence in France in the 1930s and 1940s, commissioned Binder to rebody the car in a coupé de ville style, like the "Napoléon." After passing through several hands, after World War II, it was taken to the United States by a military man, where it changed owners until it was acquired and rebuilt by Bill Harrah, a prominent gaming magnate who founded Harrah's Hotels and Casinos and the former Harrah's Automobile Collection, with 1400 vehicles, in Reno, Nevada. After Bill Harrah's death in 1978, the Royale was acquired in 1986 by General William Lyon and, after passing through several hands again, returned to its cradle in Molsheim after being acquired by Bugatti Automobiles SAS (Volkswagen Group).

But the 41111 can be seen today with the Esders bodywork as it was initially conceived. It is a story that began as an apparent attempt at forgery, although it would later end in a legal and spectacular reconstruction. The Schlumpf brothers, at the time, commissioned a chassis from the Alsthom workshops in Belfort, the former Alsatian Metal Construction Company. The chassis of the six Royale had been born there at Bugatti's request since the factory was not equipped to forge beams over six meters long.

The Schlumpfs planned to reconstruct the Esders from this chassis, a Bugatti Autorail engine, and several parts they had acquired at the Molsheim factory, including a rear axle. They set several craftsmen to work, but avoided them having contact with each other to prevent discovering the final objective of their work. The operation was cut short when the social conflict erupted after the spinning mill closed. Later, the managers of the Musée Nationale de L'Automobile de Mulhouse resumed the project. But now it was no longer about clandestinely making an Esders, but, with total transparency of the work, an Esders Royale (avoiding the term Bugatti) as a "reconstitution" of the original. And although original parts from the 1930s (engine, gearbox, front and rear axles, steering...) were used, they spoke of a new car manufactured by the Museum.

Chassis 41121 was acquired, new, in 1931, by Dr. Joseph Fuchs of Nuremberg. He commissioned a cabriolet body from the Ludwig Weinberger firm in Munich. In May 1934, the car was shipped from Trieste to Shanghai, where it was lost. In 1943, it was discovered in a scrapyard in New York, where it was bought by Charles A. Chayne, chief engineer of Buick and an enthusiast of the French brand. Chayne repaired the engine (the block was cracked) and rebuilt the bodywork, among other elements. He and his wife Esther donated their Royale to the Ford-Edison Institute (in Dearborn), where it has been on display since 1959.

The third chassis in the series was ordered by Cuthbert Foster, a retired captain of the British Army in India and heir to the Foster-Clark family, owners of the vast food industry consortium. The chassis was bodied by the London firm Park Ward Coachwork, which created a sober limousine. The car also crossed the Atlantic to the United States, acquired by John Shakespeare, another magnate, in this case of fishing rods and reels, not forgetting his oil investments, and a Bugatti collector. In 1963, Fritz Schlumpf bought the thirty-one Bugattis from Shakespeare's collection, including this Royale Park Ward, now on display at the National Automobile Museum of Mulhouse.

With a coach-type bodywork made by the Parisian coachbuilder Kellner, chassis 41141 remained in the hands of the Bugatti family until the 1950s when it passed into the hands of the American Briggs Cunningham, who displayed it in his California museum from 1956. In 1987, it was bought at auction by the Japanese IT magnate Fusaro Segikuchi. It passed through the hands of several owners until it was acquired by a businessman's society.

This chassis was bodied in a convertible touring sedan (in a horse-drawn carriage style) by the factory itself in 1931. It remained in the hands of the Bugatti family until the 1950s when it was acquired by Briggs Cunningham, along with the 41141. It was sold to B. Skitarelic, who, in turn, sold it to the cosmetics magnate John Nettercut, before being acquired by Bill Harrah, who restored and displayed it in his museum.

Later, it was bought by Jenny Moore and then by the owner of Domino's Pizza, Tom Monaghan, in December 1986, to finally be acquired by the Blackhawk Museum in Danville (USA).

Although it is said that Alfonso XIII planned to acquire a Royale, no crowned head would travel in one of those six magnificent cars. Instead, wealthy industrial magnates occupied their seats: a sign of changing times. And perhaps the Royale was born out of time. But it matters little. The clock cannot measure the time of eternal, sublime works, such as the six Type 41s of Ettore Bugatti.