Bugatti Royale

The phrase “over the top” had not been invented in 1927, but if it had,  it would  definitely have been applied to Ettore Bugatti’s Royale.  This short series of cars–only six or seven were built, and no one is quite sure of the figure–lent new meaning to the word conspicuous consumption. At the same time, the behemoth Bugatti Royale was a  beautifully engineered and meticulously crafted  piece of automotive art.

A brilliant performer

Born the son of a painter, Bugatti exhibited all the erratic brilliance of a true performer. A native of  Milan, Bugatti grew up a mechanical genius who exhibited a car of his own design at his hometown’s motor show prior to his 21st birthday. The model showed such sophistication that the De Dietrich manufacturing concern in what was then the German province of Alsace hired Bugatti and quickly  made plans to bring his car to production. The under-age Bugatti was forced to consummate the transaction using his father’s name to complete the legalities.

Soon Bugatti was designing automobiles for a number of manufacturers, including Mathis Hermes and Deutz. Automobiles Peugeot had realized success with its original Bebe version perhaps the first compact car in the modern idiom.

When the period  came to redesign the landmark version  for the 1912 selling season, Bugatti was the choice to do the honors. The car he  produced  weighed just 730 pounds and was powered by a 856 cubic centimeter in-line four cylinder engine. Equipped with just a two-speed gearbox, which was sufficient for its 37 mile-per-hour maximum speed, the Bebe’s reverse gear was engaged by using individual lever.  Similar to the Ford Model T, the front suspension was by a semi-elliptical transverse leaf springs, and like the Model T, the Bebe sold in substantial numbers, though nothing like the millions the Ford design would ultimately garner.

Bugatti started his own factory

By the age of 30, Bugatti was out on his own, producing a small series of cars at a factory in Molsheim, Alsace. The Type 13 that was his firm’s first offering was very sophisticated for the day–its engine was an overhead cam design, for example–and it did extremely well in competition. One of its most  outstanding victories was a win over a highly favored big displacement Fiat in the LeMans Grand Prix.

Unfortunately for Bugatti, the outbreak of World War I stopped his winning streak and effectively put an end to his production and motorsports efforts until the hostilities came to a close in November 1918. When the dust from the war clouds had settled, Alsace, which had been part of France until the 1871 Franco-Prussian War, was returned to the triumphant French, and Bugatti became a citizen of the French Republic. (Because of this,  his subsequent racing cars wore French blue,  instead of  the red of his Italian homeland.)

A re-vamped Type 13, called the 22/23, got Bugatti’s post-war racing program off to an excellent  beginning. He followed up with the Type 35, which became the leading Grand Prix racer of the mid-1920s.

A grossly costly camshaft

Similar to the Royale that would follow, the Type 35 demonstrated Bugatti’s meglomaniacal pursuit of a victory at any cost. The Type 35 was fitted with a gem-like 2-liter, 8-cylinder engine with a single overhead camshaft running twin intake valves and one exhaust valve per cylinder. And, surprisingly,  what a camshaft! A composite of nine separate pieces, one Type 35 camshaft was said to be priced at the equivalent of a Type 40 chassis.

The body and the running gear  of the Type 35 were just as refined as the engine. To keep the center of gravity low,  the two-seater rode on an under-slung chassis, and the drum brakes were finned for cooling and derived additional cooling from a “fan effect” produced by the open wheels. The hand-formed aluminum body had a tapered tail that expected “aerodynamic” racing car design by decades.

With the masterpiece of the Type 25 undergoing constant refinement, it is surprising that Bugatti could even think about another prototype, but that is just what he did. Legend has it that Bugatti was chided into creating the Royale by an English noblewoman, who commented to him that he built the fastest cars in the world, but Rolls-Royce still built the best.

Whether the story is true or not is of little consequence, because there is no question that in his Royale, Bugatti wanted to out-do every single automobile that had come before it. If Michelangelo had his David, then so Ettore Bugatti would have his royal ” Royale.”

Super-size me

What Le Patron (for that was his nickname) created was an elephantine chassis that, fittingly, bore the similarity of an elephant on its giant radiator cap. From its engine to its overall extent to its interior accoutrements, everything about the Royale was outsized.

Under a hood that was closely seven feet long, Bugatti stuffed a 14.7-liter eight cylinder engine, originated from an airplane powerplant he had designed during the great war. The engine itself was nearly 5 feet long, and it weighed a daunting 840 pounds less  ancillaries and fluids. (It is said the mammoth crankshaft tipped the scales at 303 pounds, because Bugatti would not think of permitting the slightest hint of crankshaft flex.)

Armed with an overhead camshaft, this behemoth powerplant supplied a nominal 300 horsepower at 1700 rpm, but its real talent was whirring out torque. In fact, it did so in such prodigious quantities, that first gear was  needed  only when getting the car moving from a dead stop and when attacking steep grades. For most driving, second was the gear of choice, since it would take the vehicle  from virtually zero to 93 miles per hour.  Depending upon bodywork, and Royale chassis seemed to be re-bodied repeatedly, top speed was as high as 125 miles per hour.

This immense drivetrain was installed  into a 180-inch wheelbase, a wheelbase about as long as two current Chevrolet Corvettes. (Later Royales were furnished with a 12.8-liter 260-horsepower version of the same engine, and the wheelbase was shortened to 170 inches.) Overall length of the Royale was over  21 feet, the same approximate size of a small cruising sailboat. The Royale’s huge  tires were fitted to wheels 38 inches in diameter.

Bodywork also odd

If the mechanicals were hard to imagine, so too were the weird, unusual,  and perhaps frightening bodywork that adorned them. Remarkably, the first body on the prototype Royale was not a Bugatti design, but a phaeton body removed from a Packard. That chassis would then wear a Bugatti-designed coupe body (because who wouldn’t desire a 3-seat vehicle riding on a 180-inch wheelbase?), a sedan body with anachronistic “stage coach” influences, and a 4-window coupe body by coachbuilder Weymann. In 1931, when Ettore Bugatti crashed the car,   apparently falling asleep at the gigantic wheel, it was rebuilt with a Coupe Napoleon body designed by Ettore’s son, Jean.

Other Royales went through similar, if not quite so shocking, histories. Particularly extraordinary is the first Bugatti sold to a customer. That client, clothing tycoon Armand Esders, never drove at night so no headlights were fitted to his immense roadster, designed by Jean Bugatti.

If at times the Royales seemed locomotive-like, it was just because they really were. In fact, several Royale engines that never found their way into automobiles later were used in trains. Four Royales powering the Presidential Autorail sent it to a maximum speed of 122 miles per hour.

But it is as an automobile that The Bugatti Royale should be remembered, because, there can be no question, we will never see its like again.

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