Bugatti, the Twilight Years 1943-1963

JOHN A R BARTON, Independent Publishing Network, £240, ISBN 978 1 83853 379 3

Confession time: I have always had a morbid fascination with the fortunes of the now-defunct French (and other European) Grand Marques post-war, the attempts they made to save themselves in a new industrial climate, and the cars they turned out when in their death throes. I was disconsolate, therefore, when this book seemed to dispatch the doomed post-war road car, the Type 101 Bugatti, quite perfunctorily. But what treasures it presents instead. Type 73 (road and race), 251, 253, 125 and 451, plus enigmatic 252, all covered in as much detail as we have seen rather than as brief postscripts in books focusing on Mulhouse’s heyday.

It is clearly a labour of love for author Barton and it is lavishly presented as one, too. It veers towards the technical – no bad thing, and as you would expect from someone who has worked on, rebuilt or restored more than 30 Bugattis – but thankfully that often leads to large and clear presentation of pictures and other illustrations. In this case that means that, of 340 thick pages in this medium-format hardback, you will find barely a word on the last half of them. These are instead given over to the six appendices, with pictures of patterns from the author’s own collection, factory correspondence and test notes, articles and engineering drawings, all lushly reproduced. Sounds dry? You can lose yourself in there for hours.

The first half is equally enthralling. All the models mentioned earlier, even baby Type 68, are covered with as much authority and detail as can be mustered by anyone, even now. And all the information is presented in a very personal manner, which is engaging. This not a history book so much as a directory of post-war Bugatti, a conscious bid to create a matter of record on the catastrophic second half of Bugatti’s history so that its inexplicable demise might be understood by future generations.