MAGAZINE

Bugatti Type 35: the most successful racing car in history

It made its debut in Lyon in 1924 without winning, because of its tires. It went on to win more races than any other car before or since — including five consecutive Targa Florio victories. The story of Ettore Bugatti’s little blue car, born in Molsheim and now the ultimate collector’s item.

On August 3, 1924, a small blue car takes the start at the European Grand Prix on the Lyon-Givors circuit. It is more beautiful than any racing car before it: a horseshoe-shaped radiator, a streamlined body tapering to a fuselage point, and wheels that set the whole paddock talking — cast aluminum-alloy rims with eight flat spokes, a world first, designed by Ettore Bugatti himself. That day, the Type 35 does not win: its poorly vulcanized tires come apart at high speed. Furious, Ettore will speak for a long time about this missed opportunity. No one at the circuit suspects that the car which has just missed its entrance will become the most victorious of all time.

The Type 35’s recipe rests on three ideas. First, lightness: about 750 kilos, a two-liter straight-eight that revs high, and a chassis whose rigidity wins engineers’ admiration. Next, functional beauty: Bugatti, the son and brother of sculptors, considered nothing decorative, and designed everything — right down to the hollow front axle, polished like a piece of fine jewelry. Finally, a revolutionary business idea: the Type 35 was for sale. While other manufacturers kept their Grand Prix cars for their factory teams, Molsheim delivered the same machine to any gentleman driver who could afford it. Dozens of private drivers lined up in Type 35s every Sunday — and every Sunday, somewhere in Europe, a Bugatti won.

The record swells to the point of seeming unbelievable: the commonly cited figure is two thousand victories in a decade, across all versions — hill climbs, Grands Prix, national events. Some became legendary. The Targa Florio, the Sicilian mountain race reputed to be the toughest in the world, fell to Bugatti five times in a row, from 1925 to 1929. The 1926 World Manufacturers’ Championship went to Molsheim. And in 1929, a privately entered Type 35B won the very first Monaco Grand Prix, driven by William Grover-Williams, the enigmatic “Williams,” a future British agent who died in deportation.

The car had its heroes, too. Louis Chiron, the Monégasque, racked up wins in the little blue car — Bugatti would later name a hypercar after him. Elisabeth Junek, the Czechoslovakian, led the 1928 Targa Florio ahead of the best factory teams before a puncture: nearly a century later, she is still considered the greatest female Grand Prix driver in history.

Today, the Type 35 is to the automobile what the Stradivarius is to the violin: an object whose every example is identified, its history recorded, and its whereabouts tracked. About 340 chassis from the Type 35 family were built; the best-documented examples change hands for between two and six million dollars, while those with impressive racing records fetch far more. In 2024, for the centenary, Bugatti took a Type 35 around the rediscovered Lyon circuit — exactly one hundred years to the day after the missed opportunity. This time, the tires held up.

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