Bugatti Royale Coupe Type 41

Bob Hall
Back when cars were art, not snap together plastic crap like today ! This is beautiful !

bughunter
Yes 👍
The pictures are a bit dark, but only a very small number of special cars was presented in a dark room. All the other halls are much brighter, so it's easier to take pictures. But I want to help Kyle for his actual build.

John Hughes
Thanks for this. I've got a 1/16 kit in my stash. Back in the tail end of the '80's, a relative of mine worked for a man who built a replica of a Type 41. Before starting, he had to get a license and full set of drawings from Bugatti. That alone cost £20k! The specifications had to be followed to the letter, which was where they hit a snag. The knob of the gear stick had to be made of ivory. It fell to my relative to source some (legal) material for this. Can you guess what his solution was?

bughunter
A piece of deer antlers?
Very nice story 👍

Kyle DeHart
John, did they splice together some old piano keys and then form them into gear knob shape?

Frank, thank you kindly for these most excellent pictures. Good and useful stuff, even if in the dark. I think the Coupe is better looking than the Berlin that I'm building but I got a deal on this one so it's what I built. A photo of that engine is where I got the inspiration for how the engine in my build looks. Again, many thanks.

John Hughes
After many trips up & down the country, he finally found an old snooker cue ball made of ivory in the cellar of an old snooker hall. It was just the right size. They just had to drill & tap a hole and engrave the gear positions on top. The car cost £250k to build, but was worth around 20 times that when finished.

Kyle DeHart
That's fantastic John. Good thinking on his part! I'd have never even thought of an old cue ball.

Spanjaard
Bob, I could not agree more!

Kyle DeHart
Same. Those old cars were like rolling jewelry. It's why I picked the kit up and decided to build it.