AlSO lOOk OUT FOR…

Ettore Bugatti was, by all accounts, a generous employer, perhaps by necessity. He was never, ever wrong, and it must have been challenging building cars with a man who, for all his instinctive understanding of engineering, ‘did not believe in calculations, formulae or principles’, according to Jean-Albert Grégoire.

The workers at the Molsheim factory had it easy compared to Ettore’s personal chef, though. Ettore, perhaps unsurprisingly given his family history and the fact that he was born in Milan, was especially fond of Italian food. He also expected ‘to be able to lunch or dine at any hour of the day’, and he was not amused when he was told that the kitchen’s pasta machine had broken and could not be repaired.

A replacement could be ordered, but delivery would take longer than Ettore was prepared to wait for his next helping of freshly made spaghetti. So he marched into the factory clutching a few hastily prepared drawings and told some unfortunate machinist to get to work.

The result was this hefty contraption, which Ettore finished with a Type 46 steering wheel rather than a traditional crank handle. It was evidently well built, because Ettore never needed to trouble his staff to make another. Frankly, it looks like it could outlive all of Molsheim’s more elegant, four-wheeled creations.

It retains its three original pasta dies, and will be offered for sale at Bonhams’ Amelia Island auction on 5 March. It is expected to fetch as much as $10,000.