Dana Point’s winning 1931 Bugatti Type 51

photo by Rich Truesdell

A couple of days ago, Dave LaChance posted a piece on the 1939 Alfa that won the Salon Privé Concours d’Elégance, and the first question people had – after the discussion on the morality of preserving cars belonging to evil people – was “where’s the rest of the history?” So when I saw the Bugatti that the judges at theDana Point Concours d’Elegance declared best in show, my first thought was: What’s the story?

To start with, SN 51133 has been with the owner, the Nethercutt Collection (exhibited here by Jack Nethercutt), since late 1959, but not always like this. In fact, for many years it was two different cars, neither of which was the car as which it started. Fortunately, years later when Nethercutt started planning for the restoration, the owner who had the current Louis Dubos body built in 1936, Andre Bith, was still alive and provided an invaluable look into how a car such as this comes to be.

Bugatti built SN 51133 as an open car for their Grand Prix team, fitted with a supercharged, DOHC 2.3-liter straight-eight making 185hp. With driver Louis Chiron, it won the 1931 Monaco, French and possibly Czech Grand Prixs (he won, but not necessarily in this car), and Bugatti gave it to him at the end of the season. According to Bith, Bugatti had trouble making Chiron’s wages and the car was part of the accounting. Chiron sold it in November 1932, probably not coincidentally when he was fired from Bugatti, and the Bugatti Club in France indicates the car was used by René Dreyfus and Paul Morand in 1932. Neither of them owned it, however, and it went through about an owner a year for the next few years, including Louis Angelo Brocairolles in July 1933, who raced it; and later driver François (or possibly Raymond…or possibly Albert) Chambost, who kept it in Nice. Chambost, however, died in his Maserati 8CM at the Deauville Grand Prix in July, and Bith bought it from his widow with Bith’s garage as intermediary. That bit of the story is also a little unclear, since Bith’s records show he took possession on June 23rd, before Deauville.

Headlamps and number plate put this prior to the fall of 1936, still with the factory body. Period photos courtesy bugattibuilder.com.

Whatever the exact circumstances, Bith was an amusing character. Twenty-six years old in ’36, he was heir to a pharmaceutical fortune and playboy owner of a number of significant cars. He was, as a potential buyer, also friends with Chiron and the entire Bugatti family.

Bith rallied and raced the car in the summer and fall of ’36, and started changing it from a pure racer into more of a sports car, adding cycle fenders, headlamps, and soon altering the tail to accommodate a spare tire. To entertain lady friends, he had a passenger-side door cut in, and he had it upholstered in white leather with a black exterior.  According to legend, Jean Bugatti showed up to one of his regular lunches with Bith in an Atlantic coupe and SN 51133 soon sported Atlantic-style disc front wheel covers.

But it was a cold winter in 1936, and Bith wanted to drive his car, so with his friend André Rolland they started sketching out a coupe body to complete the Atlantic transformation. As the Type 51 was on a shorter wheelbase than the Atlantic, it would be a shorter car and while Bith himself was short, he was stocky, and Rolland drew the proportions to hold his Costanza-esque friend.

Bith and Rolland submitted their draft to coachbuilder Louis Dubos in the XVII arrondissement in April and got the car back 14 weeks later on July 20, 1937. The body was in light steel with Duralumin alloy fenders and hood. Ettore and Jean Bugatti were apparently greatly amused. Bith was delighted with the result, but said that, while it was easy to drive, it was too heavy to race competitively. He also mentioned taking the car to more than 130 MPH while in the company of a young lady. If too heavy to win races, it was very driveable, and Bith entered it in the Paris to Nice rally, where it at least ran dependably.

SN 51133 with new Dubos coachwork on Paris-Nice 1937

Speaking of young ladies, he had ordered the car in bright Bugatti blue, with tan pigskin and sycamore interior; however, at the request of a girlfriend, Mme Jacqueline Ganet, AKA Miss France, he had it repainted South Seas Blue, a dark violet color: Mme Ganet showed the car at the 1937 Bagatelle Concours d’Elegance in Paris in a matching Drecolle dress. The car won its class and took second overall.

Bith sold the car in September of 1938, through the same agent he had used to acquire it, Mr. Schaeffer. One Andre Berson owned it for the next year, and in late 1939 or early 1940, sold it to an American aviator. We may never know who that was, but he was responsible for seeing that it survived the war in France, so thanks. In 1946, probably now somewhat decrepit after the war years, it was bought by well-known racing driver Maurice Trintignant as a parts car for his racing Type 51. He took all he wanted, including the supercharger, within a year or two, and it continued its roundabout of owners, painted black in 1946 or ’47, then white.

The next few years are quite confusing. The only fact in the early Fifties that seems to be incontrovertible is that in 1955, Pennsylvanian collector Gene Cesari bought it and sold the Dubos body, possibly to Major Eri Richardson, a Bugatti collector from Washington State. However, another report indicated that Richardson himself bought SN 51133 in France in 1950 and shipped it home to start the restoration. That’s a very plausible version of the story, as Richardson was definitely in France in the early Fifties hunting for Bugattis.

Either way, J.B. Nethercutt bought the partially restored chassis of SN 51133 from Cesari in 1959, and had American Bugatti Club President Overton Axton “Bunny” Phillips construct a replica Grand Prix-style chassis for it, and it became a well-known fixture in the Nethercutt Collction in that guise. Meanwhile, the body bounced around from collector to collector and was used on at least two chassis before ending up in the hands of Robert D. Sutherland (himself a Bugatti Club president) on a high-quality replica chassis in the Eighties. Sutherland showed and rallied it extensively on the West Coast, particularly the Colorado Grand, which he founded.

Sutherland died in 1999, and in 2000, the body appeared at the Christies auction in Monterey. Nethercutt leaped on the opportunity and bought the car, then enlisted 91-year-old Andre Bith for the restoration, gaining access to the original build documents, receipts, photographs and more. The O.A. Phillips GP body has been moved to a new chassis; I don’t know if it’s the replica on which the Dubos body came.

After what can be considered a 53-year restoration, SN 51133, with its original body and chassis reunited in-house by the Collection, debuted at Pebble Beach, where it won its class and the French Cup. Nethercutt has shown it essentially once a year since, including a Best in Show at Amelia Island in 2005, and another class award at Pebble Beach in 2009.

“The judges recognized the Bugatti for its flawless condition, stunning design and unforgettable craftsmanship,” said Dana Point Chairman D*** Waitneight. We recognize it as an incredible story of automotive survival.

UPDATE (5.July 2011): Jesse, the justacarguy, has a gallery of photos of the Bugatti in the Nethercutt, taken back in March.

Written by David Traver Adolphus

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