CHASSIS 38325 - Sport version of the Bugatti race car
French registration
Many original parts

Production of the 2-litre Type 38 lasted from April 1926 to the end of 1928.
337 examples were assembled and almost all of them were delivered as chassis to coachbuilders.
A final series of 49 compressor engines produced a few Grand Sport Torpedos with Bugatti bodies on Type 38A chassis.
Of the total of 386 cars built of this model, only about 40 vehicles have been preserved.
The Grand Sport body ¾ placed on the type 38 chassis presented for sale is not anachronistic, even if this chassis was to carry a body made by a Parisian workshop.
The car was delivered as a chassis to the Paris shop, 116 Avenue des Champs Elysées on 22 December 1926. It was part of an important order from the Parisian Sales Shop, which received a dozen type 38 chassis in December 1926:
Four chassis N° 38306 to 38309 were delivered at the beginning of December, then eight others N° 38325 to 38332 at the end of December 1926.
The selling price in the shop for chassis 38325 and the seven other chassis is 43,050 ff each, invoiced on 9 December 1926 and paid in February 1927.
The history of the car is not known to us before the war as the vehicle seems to circulate in the Seine department for which no records have survived.
It is possible that this type 38 arrived in the Rhône before the war as it was re-registered before 1955 under number 3481 AJ 69 in the new system at the beginning of the fifties.
On 5 July 1960, the vehicle was registered in the name of its last owner in Lyon, from whom the collector Philippe VILLE acquired it in the early seventies.
The car was then in chassis, only equipped with its extended bonnet, two seats and headlights. It did not have a windscreen. According to the memories of the Lyon garage owner Jean Jourdan, a forty-year friend of P.Ville, the car was originally fitted with a Weymann soft body.
It had been prepared by its last user to go fishing on the banks of the Saône or the Rhône.
Philippe Ville was a well-known wrecker in the Lyon region, specialising in heavy goods vehicles.
Born in 1906, he was a great friend of his colleague Henri Malartre (1905-2005), whose premises were located at 135 Avenue Berthelot in Lyon.
The company "BALLY & VILLE" had its buildings at 221 Avenue Felix Faure in Lyon and its construction site at rue Anatole France in Vaulx en Velin.
At the beginning of the seventies, Philippe Ville, who had recovered the Bugatti but had not begun to restore it, gave the non-running vehicle to his son René, an engineer by training, who undertook the restoration of the Bugatti.
In the memories of R. Ville, the engine was equipped with a mechanical fuel pump at the rear, on the right side.
A body in the style of the Lavocat & Marsaud 4-seater torpedos was designed by René Ville and built by a craftsman from Aurillac. The bodywork was painted in a light orange colour.
The mechanics were entrusted to the workshop of an Aurillac engine manufacturer.
Once back on the road, the car was registered on 4 June 1974 under the number 254 FS 15 in the name of René Ville in Aurillac.
For many years, the Ville family participated in local outings in the Cantal and its surroundings. In the Lyon magazine of the A.A.A. there is a photograph of the family torpedo on the roads of the Cantal around 1978.
On 5 October 1996 the car was sold to the great Cannes collector René Giordano.
He drove the car on several long trips with his wife and young son, before immobilising it.
He needed the 2-litre engine, identical to the type 35A, to power a Bugatti Grand Prix project.
Having lost its original engine, which was replaced by a new two-litre engine with two blocks and a cam box manufactured in Argentina, the car was traded to the amateur Serge Clement for an AX Renault, before being acquired by the current owner in January 2001.
The latter will have it fitted with a Torpedo Grand Sport Bugatti style body.
An examination of the vehicle in April 2021 confirms the originality and identity of the car.
The plate "chassis N° 38325 11 HP Alsace" is original.
The chassis, whose frame is engraved "192", is indeed that of car N° 38325. It has a wheelbase of 3.12, identical to that of the Type 44 and some of the early Type 49s. Its front axle has the same number 192 in the middle of its front face.
The rear axle with a 12x54 ratio is also engraved 192.It was not possible to inspect the gearbox, but an advertisement listing the car for sale prior to the current owner's purchase indicated that it was original Bugatti but not from this car, as was the radiator, which is nevertheless model correct.
The engine is of recent manufacture, as well as the chassis number engraved on the left rear lug of its lower casing. It is equipped with two bronze Solex 30 carburettors.
The original engine was number 186.
The old steering box, bears the assembly number 8.
According to the owner, the crankshaft is the original one, mounted on three bearings.
The aluminium apron that supports the dashboard is original as is the engine side of the firewall which bears the trace of at least twenty unused holes. It is more rounded than the current shape of the body that covers it.
The exhaust is from C.Y. Weymann.
The dashboard may be the one the car was equipped with when it was running on the Saône, but several counters seem to have been added since the R.Ville period.
Currently on this metal panel are: a speedometer graduated at 160km/h, a rev counter at 6000rpm, an 8 day clock and three indicators for fuel level, amperage and oil pressure.
All dials are Jaeger on a black background.
The actual aluminium body has never been painted.
It has only one door on the passenger side like the Grand Sport torpedo with Bugatti bodywork on type 38A, type 40 and type 43 chassis from which it was inspired.
The old stone guard is made by "R Le Tellier à Levallois".
The shock absorbers are Repusseau.
The originality of the vehicle presented is indisputable and the identity of its rolling chassis equipped with its axles is indeed that corresponding to the number 38325.
Very few Type 38s have survived, less than 40 out of nearly 400 cars built.
The car offered for sale has a rebuilt engine and a Grand Sport body, the most classic design for a Bugatti that is both a road car and a sports car. It would benefit from being enhanced by cosmetic work.
Pierre-Yves LAUGIER