Descripción
For sale in our forthcoming auction 'Retromobile the Official Sale', on 2 February 2024 :
Pride of place to the great French makes.
Danish title
Chassis no. 57140
Engine no. 35
Galibier body no. 18
- First-series Galibier saloon, built by the Bugatti works
- Known history, low ownership
- Remarkably well-preserved condition, original engine and body
- No reserve
The origins of the model
In 1932, aged 23, Jean Bugatti found himself on his own managing the Bugatti factory with Méo Costantini, as his father was now living permanently in Paris.
They spoke regularly on the phone and in a letter at the start of 1932, Jean told him of his desire to produce a model with independent front suspension.
Ettore categorically refused, but this did not stop Jean from going ahead with his plan.
The design for a chassis with independent suspension and a 3. 3m wheelbase was recorded as "Design no. 37, type 57" and dated 15 July 1932.
The drawing for the four-door Galibier body on this chassis, numbered 1056, was signed by Joseph Walter and dated 18 August 1932. The side view shows a saloon with a swept-back radiator grille and alloy wheels.
The two prototypes with independent front suspension
The body was fitted to the Type 57 Galibier saloon with engine 2 in mid-February 1933, while the Type 57 chassis with engine 1 only left the workshop on 30 June 1933.
These two prototypes had independent front suspension and alloy wheels with a central nut, as on the Type 50T, their exact contemporary.
The only existing photograph of one of these two cars is reproduced in the book Bugatti Magnum by Conway and Sauzay, and was taken at the Grand Prix de Berne in July 1934. It had a registration plate of convenience, that of the first Type 44, which was assigned to the Type 57 with engine 1.
The two cars were still at the factory, as can be seen from a note dated 7 May 1936, stating: "Type 57 engines 1 and 2, saloons, independent front suspension ... to be stripped down".
One of the two cars was given the code name 'Crème de menthe' by the Aumaitre J. Bugatti Costantini team, in order to avoid arousing suspicions in conversations.
In September 1937, just before the Paris Motor Show, and after covering more than 250, 000km in five years, its timing chain snapped, shattering the valves, pistons and casings. It ended up on the scrapheap. The other car was certainly broken up before this.
This marked the end of the project, which had already come to nothing by the time the Type 57 was officially presented at the Grand Palais in October 1933. The solid rear axle demanded by Ettore Bugatti was fitted to the model as it went into production.
The first three Type 57 Galibier production saloons
The Galibier with engine 5 left the workshop on 3 October 1933, followed on 7 October by that with engine 4 and on 9 October by that with engine 6.
The Paris Motor Show opened on Thursday 5 October.
The saloon with engine 4 and the registration certificate for a Type 49 was hastily dispatched by road to the show on Saturday 7 October. The Galibier with engine 6 followed the same route with the registration certificate of another Type 49 on Tuesday 10 October. It may be assumed that the car exhibited at the show had engine 4, cleaned after its mad dash to Paris, as a major feature by Charles Faroux in the daily newspaper L'Auto dated 10 October shows a picture of the Galibier on display, which could not have been the model with engine 6, since that only left Molsheim that morning.
Bugatti only sorted out the registration documents on 16 November, when he requested three licence plates for chassis 57101-57103: 5263 NV 2 was assigned to chassis 57101 with engine 5 and 5265 NV 2 to chassis 57103 with engine 6. There is no written link between 5264 NV 2 for chassis 57102 and an engine/ chassis.
The grey and black Galibier saloon with engine 5 was used as a demonstrator by Toussaint until the spring of 1935, after it had been sent to the Brussels Motor Show in November 1934 and to the Amsterdam Show in February 1935.
Production of the Bugatti Galibier from 1933-1934
After the two prototype bodies in 1932 and the three pre-production models in October 1933, production of the Galibier bodies, referred to as "Conduite Intérieure" in the coachwork register, lasted just one year.
In February 1934, five bodies were ready to be fitted to chassis.
Two of these were fitted in March, with the last three of these and another three in April, followed by six more bodies in May, four in June, six in July, seven in August and five in September, before the series came to an end in November with the Galibier for the Bishop of Strasbourg, Mgr. Ruch, and the old Galibier with engine no. 6, which received a new, larger body and a new engine on 30 November.
Only 41 bodies were therefore produced between October 1933 and November 1934, and no other Galibiers would be built by the Bugatti factory until the aerodynamic aluminium-bodied model on the third-series Type 57 chassis, which was unveiled at the Paris Motor Show in October 1938.
The survivors
Among the Type 57 saloons from 1933-1934, just ten cars have survived with their original Galibier bodies, and 57140 is undoubtedly the only, and the last one to remain untouched for nearly 60 years.
Conceived in 1932, this model led to Bugatti's only production family saloon with a twin-cam engine.
Now extremely rare, it is of great historical importance and deserves our full attention.
In October 1933, Bugatti presented the Type 57, which, with its DOHC engine, was the only touring model in the range. The very first chassis of this type, built in October 1933, was fitted with a 'four-door Galibier Saloon' body to be exhibited at the Paris Motor Show that year. The car corresponded to design no. 1056, dated 18 August 1932, produced by the stylist Joseph Walter. From October 1933 to November 1934, the Bugatti works built only 41 'Galibier Saloons': the three prototypes from 1933, then 38 bodies produced between mid-March and the end of November 1934. Production then stopped until October 1938, when the second series of 'Galibier Saloons' left Bugatti's workshops. Between 1935 and 1938, some four-door saloons were built by Gangloff and Vanvooren, but none by Bugatti.
The archives compiled by the historian Pierre-Yves Laugier provide some valuable information regarding this Bugatti Galibier.
The list of bodies from the Bugatti works shows that chassis 57140/ engine 35 was fitted with the 18th Galibier body built; the wooden sections and aluminium body panels are, moreover, marked with the number 18. It was the first of four 'C-I' ('Conduite Intérieure') models to be fitted with bodies at Molsheim in June 1934. It was completed on 7 June, followed by the Galibier 57168/ 41 on 14 June, the Galibier 57144/ 44 on 23 June and the Galibier 57157/ 47 on 29 June, i. e. one Galibier body per week.
In the works invoice ledger, 57140 appears on 1 June 1934 for the sum of 61, 695 francs, billed to the 'Société Marseillaise', the business run by the Bugatti agent Gaston Descollas at 42 avenue du Prado in Marseille. The retail price of a Galibier was 76, 000 francs in October 1933 and 79, 800 francs in October 1934, leaving a generous profit margin of 14, 000 francs for Descollas.
The works shipment records state that car 57140 was sent by train to Marseille on 8 June 1934.
The monthly delivery records show: "Marseillaise. 57140/ 35 C. I 8/ 6/ 34." The delivery records for June 1934 are even more precise: "8/ 6/ 34. 57140 - 1056 - Marseille Storione", where '1056' was the code corresponding to the Galibier body. This is the only document to give the name of the first owner, M. Storione, which is corroborated by the following Marseille police records: "Bugatti Type 57 chassis 57140, Conduite Intérieure. Registered new with the number 1034 CA 7 on 14 June 1934, in the name of Jean Storione, 11 Rue Saint-Jacques, Marseille."
The Storione family was well known in Marseille. The son of Italian immigrants, Michel Storione (Jean's father) began working in 1883 at the Société des Minoteries de Marseille before setting up his own flour-milling business. This grew rapidly, making the family very comfortably off. The business remained a family concern and, incidentally, introduced at the start of the 1980s the 'Banette', a type of French baguette which met with considerable success. In 1987, the business was sold to the 'Champagne Céréales' group.
Jean succeeded his father Michel in the business. A bachelor, he liked cars and had Delages before turning to Bugatti. His chauffeur, Marius Rey, took him to Mont Ventoux at weekends to watch the hill climbs.
He bought all his Bugattis through Gaston Descollas and they were maintained by the Menonni garage in Marseille. Before acquiring the Type 57 Galibier, he used in turn a 16-valve model, a Type 44 'Torpedo', a Type 49 and a Type 55 roadster. After he sold the Galibier in January 1936, he bought a 57 Atalante and then a 57 C Gangloff cabriolet.
In the works service records, it is noted that on 20 October 1934, the engine no. 35 from the Galibier was sent to Molsheim with the following observations: "Overhaul of engine no. 35: the crankshaft, engine block and one con rod were broken. No. 1 piston seized. Adjustment required for con rods 4 and 78 ..."
On 24 January 1936, the Bugatti thus changed hands and was registered in the name of Gustave Cousin, a doctor in Marseille. The police records mention that a duplicate registration certificate was issued to Cousin on 16 October 1944, doubtless following the loss of the original document during the war. On 24 December 1954, the car was registered in the new system with the number 7983 AQ 13.
Antoine Raffaelli, a 'historic car hunter' (notably for the Schlumpf brothers) and the owner of a garage in Marseille, recalled the first time he saw this Galibier, when it was still owned by Dr Cousin: "I went to see the car at the Paraglo garage at 268 boulevard Baille in Marseille, around 1960. The car was being serviced for Cousin and the mechanic was in the process of making some special brake linings to improve their performance. He had also changed the camshaft covers so that the engine looked more like that of an Alfa 8C! The car was black, with blue side panels. Dr Cousin was a friend of the pharmacist M. Alloud, who owned the Renault garage I have managed since 1960."
The Galibier remained in Cousin's ownership for 30 years, from 1936-1966. On 29 November 1966, it was sold to Jean Brignone, a 'film agent' who also lived in Marseille, and who sold it the following year to Antoine Raffaelli. On the back of a photograph showing the car in front of Raffaelli's garage, it is noted that it belonged to Rodolph Brignone, no doubt Jean's brother. The doctor's insignia in the form of a staff can be clearly seen to the left of the windscreen.
In spring 1967, Raffaelli sold the Galibier to Daniel Guidot, an architect living in Le Pecq (in the western suburbs of Paris), who registered it as 71 GU 78 on 17 March 1967. A member of the Bugatti Club de France (founded in 1966), Guidot also owned a Type 46 Vanvooren 'Coach' and a Type 35 A.
Around 1974, he sold the Galibier to another member of the Bugatti club, Jean Vilette, whose home address was in Paris but who worked for the mines at Hettange-Grande in Lorraine, not far from the German border. This is probably why the car later showed up in Germany, and in 1989 the German Bugatti club recorded the Galibier no. 57140 as belonging to Walter Metz from Moodbrunn. It was subsequently bought by Feierabend Klassik Technik and offered for sale at the Essen Motor Show in November 2007. It was sold there to Roland d'Ieteren, the Belgian collector and owner of the restoration business Auto Classique Touraine, based outside Tours. The Galibier was intended to be used as the basis for a project to build a Type 57 S, commissioned by Jean-Jacques Strubb. It remained untouched, however, and when Strubb died in April 2010 at the wheel of his Bugatti 51, the Galibier lay forgotten at the back of the workshop.
Around 2013, it was offered to a true Bugatti (and Ferrari) enthusiast from near Le Puy-en-Velay, José Piger. He was well acquainted with Bugatti , as his father had bought a 57 Ventoux 'Coach' in 1946, while he himself had owned, among other models, a Type 55 roadster and a Type 37 A. Won over by the Galibier, he bought it from Auto Classique Touraine and undoubtedly saved it from being converted.
After a few years, he in turn sold the car to its current owner.
Today, the car is very well preserved and has been practically untouched since the 1960s, a fact accounted for by its low number of owners, one of whom (Dr Cousin) kept it for 30 years. The body is that of a four-door Galibier built by Bugatti, and the car has its original seats and interior. The dashboard is also original, with its Jaeger instruments with black dials. An enamelled badge has the wording 'Deutscher Jagdschutz Verbrand', a hunters' association of which Herr Metz was most likely a member.
Some of the aluminium body panels, including the bonnet, are stamped with the number 18, corroborating the factory coachwork register mentioned above. The dashboard has the original chassis plate with the reference "57140 Bas-Rhin 19 CV", while the left-hand engine mount bears the factory stamp "35-57140". The camshaft covers are those modified in 1960 by Paraglo in Marseille. Apart from this, no changes to the car's original specification can be seen.
Among the 41 first-series Galibier bodies built by the Bugatti works between October 1933 and November 1934, fewer than a dozen have survived. This Galibier 57140/ 35, whose history is fully documented by the historian Pierre-Yves Laugier is one of the best preserved examples of all the cars with this initial design, the first produced by the stylist Joseph Walter for the new Type 57 chassis.
