Tonight:
9°c
Three spanking-new Bentley drop-head coupés, an AC Ace Cobra with boy-racer stripes, an open Aston-Martin, a Maserati Quattroporte, a one-wattled Mercedes and a lesser-spotted BMW, conspired to make Wimbledon Village very much the place for beautiful boulevardiers last Saturday.
But then, behind the baker's, I came upon the Bugatti, as casually parked at a meter as any Ford Mondeo. A Bugatti — what a sight to see outside a museum. Made in 1925 or so, this was, if I am not mistaken, a Type 35A, the roadster version of a racing car, a boat-tailed two-seater with racing screens and leather bonnet straps, the cellulose an enigmatic blackened blue, worth at least as much as a pair of Bentleys and quietly but emphatically trumping AC's inflated Ace.
Do not ask if the two-litre straight-eight engine lay under the bonnet, or the 2.3 that had 100mph easily within its reach — it bore no label other than the magic name BUGATTI on its nose.
You will gather that in the field of old motor cars I am something of a nerd — I am, indeed, content to confess that I could more immediately tell you the specification of a Legenda LG45 than recall the birthdate of Michelangelo.
The Wind in the Willows, a seventh birthday present, is primarily responsible for this enthusiasm, but it was soon mightily reinforced by Warwick Deeping's novel Old Pybus, in which the hero bought a crashed Bentley saloon and rebuilt it as a short-chassis open two-seater; I have ever since looked at cars with the lust of a cosmetic surgeon wanting to improve on the original.
Every year this lust is nourished by The Car Design Yearbook, of which volume seven has just been issued (Merrell, £29.95), itself beautifully designed and illustrated with photographs that tend to tell the truth rather than reflect the hyperbole of advertisers. Here are published the fledgling concepts that may influence next year's production cars; here are the small boy's fantasies of the big and beautiful; and here are the sane man's notions of quarts into pint pots. This year the cube, rather than the teardrop and ellipse, is the basic element of sensible design, and I am much reminded of cars that were on the road when I was a child — among the many echoes of the 1930s, even the flat and upright windscreen reappears.
Driving a big old Mercedes, as I do — not just big, but really big — should I be tempted by these little boxes? Yes, of course, and in a way, I am. But I potter about in the old Merc for only 1,000 miles a year or so, and I'd potter twice as far if I had a little box, probably polluting the atmosphere even more; besides, the Merc's beauty gives me the same aesthetic pleasure that I find in abstract sculpture — and I'd not get much of that from a mobile packing case. If I owned the Bugatti I'd keep it in my sitting room as a precious work of art.
Reader views (1)
the problem with cars like the bugatti is that they do indeed end up 'in sitting rooms' ie heated garages and private collections never to be seen again and not out on the road where they were designed to reign supreme,a work of art can still be practical transport if used consideratly and has no worse effect on the enviroment than a modern car being used daily.wonderfull story though.
- Peter Killick, Hartlepool United Kingdom
