GLAMOUR FOR ROAD & TRACK
From wooing a movie-star bride to the Grand Prix podium, this fabulous Corsica-bodied Bugatti Type 57S has enjoyed an eventful career
Buying one of the fastest road cars in the pre-war years was a very different experience to the modern age. It’s hard to imagine the indulgence of walking
on to a motor show stand and purchasing a new Bugatti chassis, before paying a visit to your favourite English coachbuilder and co-styling the ideal high-speed automotive steed.
Aged just 28, wealthy Scottish amateur racer and Bugatti fan Thomas ‘TASO’ Mathieson did just that at the 1936 Olympia show. On the stand of London Bugatti agent Colonel Sorel, Mathieson was tempted to order the latest T57S, Molshiem’s fastest road car. To seal the deal Sorel organised a test drive with visiting Grand Prix ace William Grover-williams, and the run with the first Monaco victor was never forgotten.
“Williams had come over to London to demonstrate the new Bugatti Type 57S, and on Saturday morning I took the road to Basingstoke to meet Len Ingrey,” Mathieson recalled to French magazine Fanatique de l’automobile. “When I arrived, I was already so enthusiastic about the car that I immediately asked Len to order a chassis. We decided to celebrate the occasion right away, and went to the closest pub for what the Scottish call ‘a wee dram’. The time passed very agreeably, but suddenly Williams remembered he had another demonstration to do in the afternoon and we had to rush to get there in time. I will never forget the drive back to London because we were doing 180kph [112mph] at the top of the Hartford Bridge Flats, despite heavy Saturday afternoon traffic. We arrived only a little late because Williams drove wonderfully well, but I had, more than once, the impression that he had forgotten the fundamental English rule to ‘keep on the left’!”
Just one month after placing the order, the chassis complete with bonnet was delivered to
the Sorel Bugatti agency on the Brixton Road. Mathieson had set his mind on a cabriolet after experience with his previous Type 57 coupé had confirmed how hot and noisy the cockpit could be. The choice of coachbuilder was Corsica, with the instruction to keep the general shapely lines of the factory-built Atalante, but with a drophead-style top that would fold away flush. The body featured triple mesh vents on each side, while a dark-blue paintjob contrasted with the pale roof trim. The new Bugatti carried the distinctive registration CAA 7.
After testing, and satisfied with his stylish new acquisition, Mathieson drove straight up to his home in Glasgow. The car was used regularly for weekend trips including rapid runs across to St Andrews and Gleneagles, where Mathieson relished the fabulous car’s impressive pace and handling on the deserted Highlands roads. ‘The car was very fast for those days,’ he recalled in a letter to third owner Branislav Sudjic. ‘Returning from Gleneagles on Sunday evening I touched 114mph (speedometer reading) on the straight by Kippen between Stirling and Drymen.’
However, Mathieson also recalled that the car had three main problems: it was always reluctant to start from cold until he used a heated garage and had a Ki-gass primer fitted; the poor ground clearance was ‘an embarrassment’; and
he felt the brakes were not powerful enough, and had a scary habit of locking the front wheels.
After just three months of ownership, Mathieson’s work situation changed and he moved to London with plans to go racing.
The large-capacity sports car revival in France had tempted him back to the track. Supply of competitive Delahaye and Talbot models proved limited so, after the factory refused to sell him the Le Mans ‘Tank’, he decided to save time by converting his coachbuilt Type 57S into a racer. Having taken a shared interest in a garage near Leatherhead with Percy Thomas, Lord Howe’s mechanic, he had the Bugatti’s bodywork removed. Staff included the experienced Charles Gal as Mathieson’s personal race mechanic, while Thomson & Taylor made the replacement body. The style followed the factory Competition Model with a low body line, outside exhaust, cockpit cowl and a single aeroscreen, plus bulky Delahaye-style wings.
Other modifications included a longer 4.2:1 rear axle ratio, high-compression pistons and better brake linings. During the spring Mathieson made several visits to Brooklands to test and evaluate the lightened T57S. “The car was able to reach 200kph on the Railway Straight,” he said, “but the excessive weight and the brakes remained a considerable inconvenience about which we could do nothing.”
For the Bugatti’s race debut, Mathieson’s small team headed to Antwerp for the 1938 Grand Prix d’anvers. The Type 57S handled well but, although he could match the top speed of the rival Delahayes, the longer gearing handicapped acceleration. After running in sixth, Mathieson was eventually stranded out on the dull, flat circuit with a split petrol tank.
While looking out for something more competitive, Mathieson persisted with the Bugatti. Results included a third at Chimay in the GP des Frontières before a Talbot T150C replaced it for the Le Mans 24 Hours. Teamed with Norbert Mathé, that sortie proved a disaster when the Talbot caught fire.
Both the repaired Talbot and the Bugatti were entered for the RAC Tourist Trophy in September at Donington. Outclassed by the winning Delage, Talbots and BMW 328s around the sweeping parkland circuit, Mathieson’s Type 57S eventually finished a lowly 20th. It was to prove the Bugatti’s last race, and straight after the TT the original Corsica body was refitted so Mathieson could again use it as his road car.
During the war the Bugatti went into storage,
“I had several long runs in it, the best being Vichy to Paris at an average of 60mph – which in 1946 was very good going”
but soon after the Armistice it was disinterred and returned to the road. Mathieson had by then moved to France and the Type 57S became his ‘ordinary hack’ around Paris and for longdistance touring. With the return of motorsport, Mathieson dusted off his old Maserati 8C for the Grand Prix du Bois de Boulogne in May 1946. At a pre-race reception at the Hotel George V in Paris, Mathieson was captivated by a beautiful Frenchwoman who turned out to be Mila Parély, the famous Polish-born actress. Parély had worked with all the great French directors including Jean Renoir (La Règle du Jeu), Jean Cocteau (La Belle et la Bête) and Max Ophüls (Le Plaisir), but her fame didn’t deter Mathieson. From the day they met, the couple became inseparable, with Parély attending races and Mathieson joining her on set. Within 11 months they were married at Neuilly Town Hall in the west of Paris, the happy event attended by friends from the racing and movie worlds, and the glamorous duo left in the dark blue Bugatti.
Mathieson was clearly attached to the Corsica beauty and covered more than 25,000 miles before selling it in 1948. “Apart from starting, I never had any serious trouble with the car and it was by far the best of the non-racing Bugattis I owned,” he recalled. “I had several magnificent long-distance runs in it, perhaps the best of these being Vichy to Paris at an average of just under 60mph, which in 1946 was very good going considering the state of the roads and also the weather, as it rained on and off the whole way.”
With his wife Parély a regular passenger, the lack of luggage space became a problem and it was eventually passed on to John H Farr, a Scottish enthusiast who took the Bugatti back to Edinburgh. Farr had a small engineering shop, and stashed away the Type 57S with a Minerva, early Cadillacs and a Mercedes Type 36/20, but the cars were rarely driven. When the Bugatti was eventually sold in 1974, it had just 30,000 miles on the clock, but the following owner, Branislav Sudjic, was very much a driver. After he’d rebuilt the brakes and the complex de Ram shock absorbers, Sudjic set out in the summer of 1976 for a touring holiday across Europe to attend a rally. Travelling in style with the roof down for most of the way, the fabulous Bugatti visited Denmark and Sweden before heading east to Poland and Czechoslovakia.
After the rally, Sudjic diverted for a pilgrimage to Molsheim. Ironically, having covered 3500 miles without problems, the Type 57S refused to start at the old factory. Once it was fixed, Sudjic
‘When called upon the throttle produces an energetic surge, the engine note changing from a refined hum to a classic whine’
called by at Bugatti specialist Bart Loyens in Luxembourg to collect some spares before heading home to Scotland. He also contacted Mathieson in January 1975, and the long return letter from the first owner was filled with vivid memories, concluding: ‘The next time you go out in CAA 7, pat her tenderly on the bonnet for me and say I often think of the many long runs we had together in the distant past.’
In 1978 Sudjic put the Corsica drophead up for auction with Sotheby’s at Donington, the track where chassis 57491 had last raced 40 years earlier. With an estimate of £35,000 it failed to sell, but was eventually acquired by French Bugatti collector André Binda, who had the great car repainted two-tone red. Together with the highly original ex-marcel Lehoux Grand Prix Type 35C, the Type 57S was exhibited in the Mougins Automobile Museum near Cannes. Still showing just 40,000 miles, the T57S was sold in 1985 to Nicolas Seydoux, who immediately sent it to top French restorer Carrosserie Lecoq in Saint-ouen, northern Paris, for a full restoration. When chassis 57491 reappeared on Carrosserie Lecoq’s stand at Rétromobile, the immaculate bodywork was finished in the classic black-and-yellow paint scheme that it still wears. The stylish Bugatti then tempted fashion magnate Ralph Lauren, but after a couple of years it was sold because he preferred the sleeker lines of his Gangloff cabriolet. The Corsica Type 57S then headed back across the Atlantic in 2001 when it was brought to Spain by Miguel González to join one of the greatest Bugatti collections.
With its long, chromed steering column, slender swept-back gearlever and distinctive tubular framed seats, there’s nothing like the relaxed driving position of a Type 57. The dashmounted levers for hand throttle and ignition retard/advance are also uniquely Molshiem. With a little choke on a warm summer’s day, the 3.2-litre straight-eight starts first time but it takes a while to warm up the oil from the dry sump. With the sun high, the drophead body is welcome because the cockpit in a coupé soon turns into an oven.
At low speeds the engine is impressively flexible and has no problem with traffic, but when called upon the throttle produces an energetic surge, the engine note switching from a refined hum to a classic whine thanks to the common addition of a supercharger. The wormand-wheel steering soon lightens and there are no shakes, rattles or groans from the Englishmade body as the speed picks up. The expensive de Ram dampers are thankfully well maintained, and through the turns the chassis with its underslung rear feels balanced, with just a trace of understeer. At higher speeds you can feel the front wheels bounce, but that’s soon forgotten as you accelerate out of bends with instant pick up and silky power. With 200bhp at 5500rpm, the impressive performance tests the limits of the drum brakes but they feel progressive, with a firm pedal. The non-synchro gearbox can’t be rushed but the conventional pedal layout, with brake and accelerator close together, makes it easy to double-declutch.
Purring along in top gear at 70mph, the Type 57S devours the miles and it’s easy to appreciate why Mathieson enjoyed long Continental trips in this exotic. As the engine whines away, you can’t help thinking about the dramatic life of this chassis, both as a sublime road car and its brief racing career. After the hell of war, it must been heavenly transport for Mathieson with his film-star bride sitting alongside.