Buagatti Type 55, Sir? Don't mind if I do...
By the early 1930s Ettore Bugatti had established an unrivalled reputation for building cars with outstanding performance on road or track the worlds greatest racing drivers enjoying countless successes aboard the Molsheim factorys products and often choosing them for their everyday transport. Because of its lengthy run of success, Ettore Bugatti remained stubbornly committed to his single-cam engine, only adopting the more advanced double-overhead-camshaft method of valve actuation, after much prompting by his eldest son Jean, on the Type 50 of 1930.
From then on Jean Bugatti took greater responsibility for design, his first car being the exquisite Bugatti Type 55 roadster, a model ranking among the finest sports cars of the 1930s. The Type 55s 2,262cc, supercharged, twin-cam, straight-eight engine was carried over from the successful Type 51 Grand Prix car - successor to the legendary Type 35 - and fitted in a ladder frame chassis wider and stronger than that of its Type 43 road-car predecessor. The precocious Jean Bugatti added his own individual touch, designing a sublime two-seat roadster body that is universally acknowledged as one of the finest ever to grace an automobile. Aimed at only the wealthiest clientele, the Type 55 sold in commensurately limited numbers, a mere 38 being built between 1932 and 1935, the vast majority of these in the first year of production. A true supercar of its era, the Type 55 is today one of the most desirable and expensive cars in the world.
