[STORIES] 1965 Bugatti Type 101C Ghia - AllCarIndex
World War II and its aftermath caused Bugatti to fall into financial disarray at the close of the 1940’s, spelling the end of Ettore Bugatti’s enterprise. The Molsheim facilities had been ruined by the retreating Germans after been occupied by the III Reich to build torpedoes and Hans Trippel’s amphibious vehicles and Ettore’s personnel and machinery had been whipsawed back and forth across France by successive wartime regimes. Ettore Bugatti was isolated in Paris, and judged a belligerent by the post-war government because of his Italian citizenship and his property was then stripped of. His death in 1947, at 58 years old, ended up splitting the remains of the Bugatti enterprise along his heirs from both marriages.
In 1951, Bugatti tried a comeback with the new Type 101 model, based on a modified version of the Type 57 chassis, from which was also brought a slightly updated version of the 3257cc straight-8 supercharged engine, producing around 200hp. Due to the heavy damage inflicted to Bugatti factory and the death of Ettore, la marque built only 7 chassis before going bankrupt, having the very last one (#101506) been sold to Exner in 1961 for $2.500. The chassis even says "Fini" (the End) in the end of the chassis number plate.
The Revival Cars project
In December 1963, Virgil Exner Jr. published in Esquire a series of seven design proposals for the revival of classic cars (mostly American) drawn according to modern tastes. Of those, four models became full-size cars by the hands of Virgil Exner himself: the Stutz Blackhawk, the Duesenberg Model D, the Mercer-Cobra and the Bugatti Type 101C Ghia.
For the case of the Bugatti, Virgil sent the chassis he had bought in 1961 to Ghia, in order to finish the Revival model. At Ghia atelier, the Type 101 chassis was shortened by a full 460mm and the steel bodywork with Virgil’s design was placed on it with only minor changes, namely the side-mounted exhaust pipes and raked windshield (which gave place to a tasteful split windscreen). After 6 months of works, the finished work was presented at the 1965 Turin show, after which 50 buyers signed up for the car, being Elvis Presley the most notorious among them.
Unfortunately, Exner fell into financial problems before the production could start and the project was aborted, the car being taken as a part of payment for debts. Exner was obliged to sell the car to Thomas Barett III, who after that sold it to Irving Tushinsky and subsequently to Mr. Anderson. The Blackhawk Behring Museum bought it in about 1984 and sold it in December 1988 to General William Lyon, its current owner who also owns the famous Type 10 Petit Pur-Sang, the first real Bugatti which Ettore built in the basement of his house, while working as a manager for Deutz, two years before the foundation of his factory.
TEXT: João Silva
