ROBERT COUCHER
The Driver
They came at me like a swarm of biplanes out of the sun. One minute I was cruising along at a decent clip in the cockpit of my German machine, the next I was being assailed by a squadron of bleu dervishes accompanied by staccato rips of exhaust flame and the aroma of Castrol R . Under a clear blue sky somewhere near Angoulême, I’d just been jumped by the Club Bugatti France.
My fully tweaked Porsche 356 with its 125bhp engine was a bloody quick little rally car but these Bugs had me bested. Vintage Bugs, you understand, little two-seaters lashed together with chicken wire, planted on spindly alloys set at ludicrous positive camber. En masse they sounded fabulous and the driving style displayed by the drivers, both male and female, meant I struggled to keep up, such was their death-defying laissez-faire over crests and around blind corners. A good couple of miles later the Bugatti racers had a coffee break in a layby and we couldn’t resist pulling in to photobomb their proceedings. My navigator and I were met with what looked like a French fashion shoot. All the
Bugattisti were decked out in denim. Not the Dad Denim of Pebble Beach, but cool, considered, unbuttoned deneeem shirts and tight-fitting jeans. The blokes looked like Alain Delon;
les femmes sported windswept tresses and sports chassis, and dragged on unfiltered Gitanes. They all wore battered leather jackets to match their patinated blue-hot vintage racers. And I decided I had to drive a vintage Bug hard ’n’ fast before I die…
It didn’t turn out like that. My first Bugatti drive was at a remote location in south-west Spain. I was introduced to Pierre-Henri Raphanel, his Bugatti business card bearing the title Pilote Officiel. Some of you might recognise his name as an F1 and Le Mans driver, who finished second in the Gulf Racing McLaren F1 GTR in 1997. And yes, he had the key to a Veyron in his pocket. Pierre-Henri showed me how it worked, then let me take over for the rest of the day.
He was über-cool, had nothing to prove and so handled its 1001hp with ease. I found it a bit more challenging. His biggest problem with these test drives? Spoilt children of billionaires who had just learnt to drive, knowing he was a racing driver and wanting to impress him. No, I wouldn’t want to be in that passenger seat either!
Pierre-Henri and I met again at a cold and wet Rockingham Motor Speedway. He’d flown in to take part in our cover shoot for issue 80, February 2010, and we were joined by the Octane columnist and actor Rowan Atkinson, driving his deep purple 627bhp McLaren F1. To say the conditions favoured the allwheel-drive, computer-assisted Bugatti is an understatement. Rowan concluded that the Veyron was an ‘adorable… extravagant nonsense’ but the F1 ‘a more special car’, being more involving. No kidding, Rowan. In the out-takes he can be seen sliding and spinning the ‘involving’ F1 on the freezing circuit, while in the Veyron his slides through corners were choreographed perfection. And then did the McLaren Le Mans ace Pierre-Henri show us how it should be done in the F1? With an emphatic ‘Non’ he didn’t even get into the Mac. A cool professional.
My first pre-war Bugatti experience came with a 1936 Type 57C (Octane 104, February 2012). Following the International Historic Motoring Awards evening in London, car broker extraordinaire Simon Kidston thought it would be a hoot to drive his Bug and his ’56 Gullwing straight back to Geneva. That night. Still in black tie. And we made it to Geneva airport the next day for my flight home. Simon’s black Benz was superb but the 57C was the car that enchanted more, with its supercharged straight-eight. It sounded immense at full chat.
Finally, the ultimate Bugatti experience: a 1931 Type 51 racing car on the mad Mille Miglia, basically a Type 35 with a bigger lump. Thanks to the extraordinary generosity of Bugatti man Julius Kruta I was paired up with Willi Netuschil, then head of Bugatti engineering.
(Octane 134, August 2014). Willi handed me a laptop and told me to navigate as he was intent on driving. I let him get away with it until the second day; then, just before the Futa and Raticosa passes (I have prior knowledge), I rather insouciantly suggested I have a drive. Flat-out through the best roads in the world in an open, supercharged, straight-eight Bugatti Type 51 remains the best motoring experience of my life.
And no, there was no deneeem in sight.
‘MY FULLY TWEAKED PORSCHE 356 WAS A BLOODY QUICK LITTLE RALLY CAR BUT THESE BUGATTIS HAD ME BESTED’