Bugatti 57 c Ventoux
Luxembourg title Engine n° 265 - Freshly rebuilt engine - Superb Provenance - Interesting history This new series followed on from the first design of 1934, which led to just over 50 cars being produced between June 1934 and August 1935. The design of the Ventoux Coach second series, first presented at the Paris Motor Show in October 1935, shows a more fluid wing line, smoothly extended by the integrated boot. The first car, with chassis n° 57329, was finished on 28 September 1935 and unveiled at the Paris Motor Show at the Grand Palais in early October. The car offered for auction is approximately the tenth from a series of around 30 cars produced by October 1936. The production rate of the Ventoux Coach was as follows: four in December 1935, five in January 1936, seven in February, five in March, four in April, three in May, and one final car in August 1936. VENTOUX COACH CHASSIS N° 57344 The car left the body shop on 3 February 1936. It was black in colour with a pigskin interior. On 10 February 1936 it was sold to Henri Matile, the Bugatti dealer in Nantes, who had a large showroom in the city at 20 rue Racine. He was invoiced for 57,608 French Francs - the set price charged to all dealers for the new model. Matile had ordered the car at the start of the year, and registered the vehicle on 14 January 1936 (number 8795 JH 3) - two weeks before it left the factory! After two months of use for client demonstrations and on display in the Rue Racine showroom, the car acquired its first private owner on 8 April 1936: Marcel Rineau of 20 rue Franklin, Nantes, an entrepreneur specializing in heating installation. His well-established company installed central heating in such historic buildings as the theatre in Fontenay-le-Comte, in 1924, and is still based in Nantes (at 46 Boulevard de la Prairie-au-Duc) - although it is no longer family-run. Marcel Rineau owned no other Bugatti. The car was badly damaged by an accident near Saintes (Charente Maritime) around 1939, when it went off the road; it may subsequently have been taken back by the dealer Henri Matile. On 17 March 1939 it was registered in the Seine département (Paris area) under number 600 RM 3. Yet by 26 April 1939 the car was again back with Henri Matile, now with the number-plate 2751 JH 5. In August 1939, shortly before the outbreak of World War II (and the very day of Jean Bugatti's accidental death), Matile found a buyer from Toulouse for his former demonstration car. On 11 August 1939 the car was registered with number-plate 9004 FS 5 at the Préfecture de Haute Garonne, in the name of P. Guggenheim of 42 chemin de Payssat, Toulouse. On 11 November 1942 German troops invaded the Unoccupied Zone and, when they reached Toulouse, lost no time in requisitioning the finest homes. But the Bugatti escaped their prying eyes and, on 3 August 1943, was sold to Jean-Maxime Trouvé of 28 rue Peyrolière, Toulouse. He was just an intermediary: on August 6, the car was registered in the name of the Compagnie Industrielle des Produits Agricoles at Salies-du-Salat. The Coach Ventoux stayed there until the end of the war then, on 26 March 1946, was sold to Georges Loubet of Chemin Maubec in St-Martin-du-Touch in the suburbs of Toulouse. Four months later it found a new owner in Picardy. It made the reverse journey to those fleeing the Nazi advance in 1940, from Toulouse up to Amiens - a city still reeling from the bombings of May 1940. Its new owner was Maurice Pons, Director of an important rubber factory, Les Etablissements Hartley & Pons, based at the Usine de la Croix-Rompue in Amiens with branches in Paris, Nantes and Toulouse. Pons may have come across the car during a trip to one of the branches that had remained operational after the martyrdom of Amiens. The firm had been founded around 1921, when Pons went into partnership with Captain Harry Hartley, a British soldier (demobilized in August 1919) who had married an Amiens girl in January 1918, then stayed on after the war. Hartley had already been involved in the automobile business before the war, and the new firm specialized in tyres, and in repairing casings and air chambers by vulcanization. Hartley was killed during the 1940 exodus as the Germans advanced into Picardy. After World War II his partner Maurice Pons developed the production of moulded rubber, lodging various patents in the mid-1950s connected to the transportation and protection of bottles and the manufacture of moulded rubber boots. On 23 July 1946 the Bugatti was registered in the name of Société Hartley & Pons, Amiens, with the number-plate 3886 XP 6. On 16 January 1947 it became the personal property of Pons Maurice, Industriel of 450 route de Paris, Amiens. One year after reaching Picardy the Bugatti was sold to a Paris connoisseur who had links to the region, as his family had holidayed at Cayeux-sur-Mer, on the Bay of the Somme, since before 1914. On 13 June 1947 the car was registered in the name of Jean Turck of Paris and Cachan. It seems Turck had been driving the car for some time before taking out registration in his own name - as shown by a photograph in his possession, showing it still with a 3886 XP 6 number-plate! In June 1947 the car was issued with the registration number 2482 RP 8 by the Seine département. The history of this Bugatti led us to track down and talk to Jean Turck, a hearty 101 year-old whose memories of his Bugatti period remain crystal clear. Our recent conversation at his home, and the chance to consult his family souvenirs, revealed an amazing character. Jean Paul Gustave Turck was born in Paris (3 rue Cler) on 17 May 1911. His father was a skating instructor at the Palais de Glace on the Champs-Elysées. When he was young, Jean Turck developed a keen interest in radio, qualifying as a radio technician at the Conservatoire National des Arts & Métiers in June 1928. He then occupied various jobs in the nascent radio-electricity industry and undertook research into frequency modulation. In 1934/5 he effected his national service at the radio-transmitter station on the Eiffel Tower. Turck was soon learning about Bugatti mechanics: in 1938 his elder brother André bought a two-seater Type 44 Cabriolet - in which Jean fled Paris with his wife, son and parents when the Germans arrived in June 1940. At the end of the war this 3-litre vehicle was used as a factory car until it was crashed by an employee. From 1938 Turck worked with engineer Maurice Hurel on plans for a flying bomb, and produced a remote-control system for unmanned aircraft bearing explosives. On 16 August 1943 Turck and Hurel joined the Free France movement and flew out of Cannes from under the Nazis' noses on a prototype plane. Once they had arrived in Philippeville, Turck was contacted by the British and went on to make numerous flights between North Africa and London, perfecting remote-controlled craft and devices for scrambling the guiding systems used by German aircraft aiming to destroy Allied convoys in the Mediterranean. In 1945 the French Naval Ministry (Central Unit for Construction & Arms) asked him to found his own company 'so I could receive orders placed by the Ministry of Defence. After launching this industrial concern my administrator, Monsieur Baconnet, bought me a prestigious automobile: a Bugatti Type 57 Ventoux, which I used to visit clients.' The factory at Cachan (19 rue de la Gare) was built in 1946 and employed nearly 200 people. In 1948 Turck moved to a new home: Domaine de la Tuilerie at Saulx-les-Chartreux, 20km from Cachan. The property had two large garages for his two Bugattis - the Ventoux was soon joined by a 1939 black 57C Gangloff Cabriolet. A fleet of Citroën front-wheel drive vehicles were needed for all his trips on behalf of the Cachan factory. 'We used to take the buttercup-yellow Bugatti Ventoux for our weekend trips to Cabourg. One day I was mad enough to buy the 57 Cabriolet with compressor from Roger Teillac of Paris (Avenue de Suffren). I think I paid him several million (old) French Francs! The factory garage was run by a remarkable mechanic who had been part of the Le Man 24 Hours from the outset, working for Lorraine-Dietrich, the first winners - so my Bugattis were treated with loving care. But the Coach Ventoux's cable brakes were not the most efficient, so I tracked down a former Bugatti factory mechanic, Albert Divo, who owned a small garage in Paris, at 63 Avenue de Clichy. He fitted an hydraulic system I was perfectly happy with. I used the Bugatti 57C for major trips abroad. I kept both Bugattis for nearly ten years.' On 4 April 1954 the Coach Ventoux was re-registered in the name of Ets Turck Jean-Paul (139 rue de la Tour, Paris) with number-plate 5379 DU 75. The address was Jean Turck's domicile. In 1949 the Turck firm was contacted by Matra to study ground-to-air missile guiding systems, and became world pioneers in optronics. In 1956 the firm, while remaining an independent entity, became part of the S.A.T. (Société Anonyme de Télécommunication); by now nearly 3,000 employees were involved in the cutting-edge activity pioneered by Jean Turck. Despite his natural modesty, Turck acknowledges that he was ten years ahead of the Americans with his infrared research of the early 1950s. From his retirement in 1976 until 1988 he served NATO in an engineering advisory capacity. After over ten years of good and faithful service, the Bugattis were sold when Ets Turck were restructured: the Ventoux in April 1957 and the Cabriolet in May 1958. On 16 April 1957 the Coach was registered in the name of Comte Antoine de Labriffe (1926-95), a 30 year-old banker domiciled at 172 rue de l'Université in Paris - a superb Art Deco building from 1931. He owned various garages for keeping his cars - when they were not at his family estate, the Château de Neuville at Gambais, west of Paris. In September 1958 garage-owner Gaston Docime, a Bugatti specialist, welcomed his new acquisition to 23 Boulevard de la Saussaie in Neuilly-sur-Seine. Like most of other Bugattis discovered by the bearded Docime, the 57344 would find its way to the U.S. - becoming the property of Hugo Buerger III in Golden, Colorado in September 1958. Buerger worked in the automobile business and was, for a time, a Buick dealer and Jaguar's importer for Colorado. He often travelled to Europe in the 1950s on the look-out for vintage automobiles. Around 1973 the blue Bugatti Coach was in New York, owned by a certain J. Cappuozzo. The name of Dick Withers also appears before the car was acquired by Ronald Secor of San Dimas, California, who showed it at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance in 1977. In 1986 the Ventoux Coach was back in Europe, in the hands of British collector H.B. Murphie of Barnston in Cheshire. On 29 June 1992 it was sold at auction by Sotheby's to Romano Artioli, President of Bugatti Automobili SPA - who produced the fast Bugatti EB110 from 1991-95. The car's current owner has had extensive mechanical revision carried out over the last three years at the workshop of Gianni Torelli, one of Italy's top Bugatti specialists. We would be thrilled to bring together Jean Turck and the next owner of this splendid Bugatti Type 57 Coach. There could be a few revelations about the secrets of its mechanical longevity - though without betraying any Defence secrets! Pierre-Yves Laugier January 2013
Luxembourg title Engine n° 265 - Freshly rebuilt engine - Superb Provenance - Interesting history This new series followed on from the first design of 1934, which led to just over 50 cars being produced between June 1934 and August 1935. The design of the Ventoux Coach second series, first presented at the Paris Motor Show in October 1935, shows a more fluid wing line, smoothly extended by the integrated boot. The first car, with chassis n° 57329, was finished on 28 September 1935 and unveiled at the Paris Motor Show at the Grand Palais in early October. The car offered for auction is approximately the tenth from a series of around 30 cars produced by October 1936. The production rate of the Ventoux Coach was as follows: four in December 1935, five in January 1936, seven in February, five in March, four in April, three in May, and one final car in August 1936. VENTOUX COACH CHASSIS N° 57344 The car left the body shop on 3 February 1936. It was black in colour with a pigskin interior. On 10 February 1936 it was sold to Henri Matile, the Bugatti dealer in Nantes, who had a large showroom in the city at 20 rue Racine. He was invoiced for 57,608 French Francs - the set price charged to all dealers for the new model. Matile had ordered the car at the start of the year, and registered the vehicle on 14 January 1936 (number 8795 JH 3) - two weeks before it left the factory! After two months of use for client demonstrations and on display in the Rue Racine showroom, the car acquired its first private owner on 8 April 1936: Marcel Rineau of 20 rue Franklin, Nantes, an entrepreneur specializing in heating installation. His well-established company installed central heating in such historic buildings as the theatre in Fontenay-le-Comte, in 1924, and is still based in Nantes (at 46 Boulevard de la Prairie-au-Duc) - although it is no longer family-run. Marcel Rineau owned no other Bugatti. The car was badly damaged by an accident near Saintes (Charente Maritime) around 1939, when it went off the road; it may subsequently have been taken back by the dealer Henri Matile. On 17 March 1939 it was registered in the Seine département (Paris area) under number 600 RM 3. Yet by 26 April 1939 the car was again back with Henri Matile, now with the number-plate 2751 JH 5. In August 1939, shortly before the outbreak of World War II (and the very day of Jean Bugatti's accidental death), Matile found a buyer from Toulouse for his former demonstration car. On 11 August 1939 the car was registered with number-plate 9004 FS 5 at the Préfecture de Haute Garonne, in the name of P. Guggenheim of 42 chemin de Payssat, Toulouse. On 11 November 1942 German troops invaded the Unoccupied Zone and, when they reached Toulouse, lost no time in requisitioning the finest homes. But the Bugatti escaped their prying eyes and, on 3 August 1943, was sold to Jean-Maxime Trouvé of 28 rue Peyrolière, Toulouse. He was just an intermediary: on August 6, the car was registered in the name of the Compagnie Industrielle des Produits Agricoles at Salies-du-Salat. The Coach Ventoux stayed there until the end of the war then, on 26 March 1946, was sold to Georges Loubet of Chemin Maubec in St-Martin-du-Touch in the suburbs of Toulouse. Four months later it found a new owner in Picardy. It made the reverse journey to those fleeing the Nazi advance in 1940, from Toulouse up to Amiens - a city still reeling from the bombings of May 1940. Its new owner was Maurice Pons, Director of an important rubber factory, Les Etablissements Hartley & Pons, based at the Usine de la Croix-Rompue in Amiens with branches in Paris, Nantes and Toulouse. Pons may have come across the car during a trip to one of the branches that had remained operational after the martyrdom of Amiens. The firm had been founded around 1921, when Pons went into partnership with Captain Harry Hartley, a British soldier (demobilized in August 1919) who had married an Amiens girl in January 1918, then stayed on after the war. Hartley had already been involved in the automobile business before the war, and the new firm specialized in tyres, and in repairing casings and air chambers by vulcanization. Hartley was killed during the 1940 exodus as the Germans advanced into Picardy. After World War II his partner Maurice Pons developed the production of moulded rubber, lodging various patents in the mid-1950s connected to the transportation and protection of bottles and the manufacture of moulded rubber boots. On 23 July 1946 the Bugatti was registered in the name of Société Hartley & Pons, Amiens, with the number-plate 3886 XP 6. On 16 January 1947 it became the personal property of Pons Maurice, Industriel of 450 route de Paris, Amiens. One year after reaching Picardy the Bugatti was sold to a Paris connoisseur who had links to the region, as his family had holidayed at Cayeux-sur-Mer, on the Bay of the Somme, since before 1914. On 13 June 1947 the car was registered in the name of Jean Turck of Paris and Cachan. It seems Turck had been driving the car for some time before taking out registration in his own name - as shown by a photograph in his possession, showing it still with a 3886 XP 6 number-plate! In June 1947 the car was issued with the registration number 2482 RP 8 by the Seine département. The history of this Bugatti led us to track down and talk to Jean Turck, a hearty 101 year-old whose memories of his Bugatti period remain crystal clear. Our recent conversation at his home, and the chance to consult his family souvenirs, revealed an amazing character. Jean Paul Gustave Turck was born in Paris (3 rue Cler) on 17 May 1911. His father was a skating instructor at the Palais de Glace on the Champs-Elysées. When he was young, Jean Turck developed a keen interest in radio, qualifying as a radio technician at the Conservatoire National des Arts & Métiers in June 1928. He then occupied various jobs in the nascent radio-electricity industry and undertook research into frequency modulation. In 1934/5 he effected his national service at the radio-transmitter station on the Eiffel Tower. Turck was soon learning about Bugatti mechanics: in 1938 his elder brother André bought a two-seater Type 44 Cabriolet - in which Jean fled Paris with his wife, son and parents when the Germans arrived in June 1940. At the end of the war this 3-litre vehicle was used as a factory car until it was crashed by an employee. From 1938 Turck worked with engineer Maurice Hurel on plans for a flying bomb, and produced a remote-control system for unmanned aircraft bearing explosives. On 16 August 1943 Turck and Hurel joined the Free France movement and flew out of Cannes from under the Nazis' noses on a prototype plane. Once they had arrived in Philippeville, Turck was contacted by the British and went on to make numerous flights between North Africa and London, perfecting remote-controlled craft and devices for scrambling the guiding systems used by German aircraft aiming to destroy Allied convoys in the Mediterranean. In 1945 the French Naval Ministry (Central Unit for Construction & Arms) asked him to found his own company 'so I could receive orders placed by the Ministry of Defence. After launching this industrial concern my administrator, Monsieur Baconnet, bought me a prestigious automobile: a Bugatti Type 57 Ventoux, which I used to visit clients.' The factory at Cachan (19 rue de la Gare) was built in 1946 and employed nearly 200 people. In 1948 Turck moved to a new home: Domaine de la Tuilerie at Saulx-les-Chartreux, 20km from Cachan. The property had two large garages for his two Bugattis - the Ventoux was soon joined by a 1939 black 57C Gangloff Cabriolet. A fleet of Citroën front-wheel drive vehicles were needed for all his trips on behalf of the Cachan factory. 'We used to take the buttercup-yellow Bugatti Ventoux for our weekend trips to Cabourg. One day I was mad enough to buy the 57 Cabriolet with compressor from Roger Teillac of Paris (Avenue de Suffren). I think I paid him several million (old) French Francs! The factory garage was run by a remarkable mechanic who had been part of the Le Man 24 Hours from the outset, working for Lorraine-Dietrich, the first winners - so my Bugattis were treated with loving care. But the Coach Ventoux's cable brakes were not the most efficient, so I tracked down a former Bugatti factory mechanic, Albert Divo, who owned a small garage in Paris, at 63 Avenue de Clichy. He fitted an hydraulic system I was perfectly happy with. I used the Bugatti 57C for major trips abroad. I kept both Bugattis for nearly ten years.' On 4 April 1954 the Coach Ventoux was re-registered in the name of Ets Turck Jean-Paul (139 rue de la Tour, Paris) with number-plate 5379 DU 75. The address was Jean Turck's domicile. In 1949 the Turck firm was contacted by Matra to study ground-to-air missile guiding systems, and became world pioneers in optronics. In 1956 the firm, while remaining an independent entity, became part of the S.A.T. (Société Anonyme de Télécommunication); by now nearly 3,000 employees were involved in the cutting-edge activity pioneered by Jean Turck. Despite his natural modesty, Turck acknowledges that he was ten years ahead of the Americans with his infrared research of the early 1950s. From his retirement in 1976 until 1988 he served NATO in an engineering advisory capacity. After over ten years of good and faithful service, the Bugattis were sold when Ets Turck were restructured: the Ventoux in April 1957 and the Cabriolet in May 1958. On 16 April 1957 the Coach was registered in the name of Comte Antoine de Labriffe (1926-95), a 30 year-old banker domiciled at 172 rue de l'Université in Paris - a superb Art Deco building from 1931. He owned various garages for keeping his cars - when they were not at his family estate, the Château de Neuville at Gambais, west of Paris. In September 1958 garage-owner Gaston Docime, a Bugatti specialist, welcomed his new acquisition to 23 Boulevard de la Saussaie in Neuilly-sur-Seine. Like most of other Bugattis discovered by the bearded Docime, the 57344 would find its way to the U.S. - becoming the property of Hugo Buerger III in Golden, Colorado in September 1958. Buerger worked in the automobile business and was, for a time, a Buick dealer and Jaguar's importer for Colorado. He often travelled to Europe in the 1950s on the look-out for vintage automobiles. Around 1973 the blue Bugatti Coach was in New York, owned by a certain J. Cappuozzo. The name of Dick Withers also appears before the car was acquired by Ronald Secor of San Dimas, California, who showed it at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance in 1977. In 1986 the Ventoux Coach was back in Europe, in the hands of British collector H.B. Murphie of Barnston in Cheshire. On 29 June 1992 it was sold at auction by Sotheby's to Romano Artioli, President of Bugatti Automobili SPA - who produced the fast Bugatti EB110 from 1991-95. The car's current owner has had extensive mechanical revision carried out over the last three years at the workshop of Gianni Torelli, one of Italy's top Bugatti specialists. We would be thrilled to bring together Jean Turck and the next owner of this splendid Bugatti Type 57 Coach. There could be a few revelations about the secrets of its mechanical longevity - though without betraying any Defence secrets! Pierre-Yves Laugier January 2013