1925 Bugatti Type 23 Brescia Boat Tail

Details

Oldtimer Australia is delighted to confirm the private sale of this lovely 1923 Bugatti Type 23 ‘Modifie’.

This car is well documented in Bob King’s fabulous book – Bugattis in Australia and New Zealand 1920 to 2012. It has a known history from new and was delivered through Jarrott and Letts in London on the 9^th May 1925.

Originally fitted with a Tourer style body this little Brescia has a fairly hard early life where it was often raced. At some stage the car was rebodied by Graeme Wilkinson and by 1983 it had found its way into the ownership of Peter Briggs. The car was displayed at Briggs’ York Motor Museum and later his Fremantle Motor Museum. The current owner acquired the car from the Briggs collection some fifteen years ago.

The car has sat for some forty years and is patiently waiting to be recommissioned / restored.

 

Background

Ettore Bugatti was born in Milan Italy on the 15^th September 1881. He was part of a very entrepreneurial and creative family. His grandfather was an architect and sculptor, his father a furniture and jewellery designer of some note and other members of the family were sculptors and artists. Ettore was obsessed with the evolution of the automobile and in 1898 he built his first car as a teenager. Over the next ten years he built a number of cars, however, it wasn’t until the 1^st January 1910 that he founded Automobiles Ettore Bugatti in the then-German city of Molsheim, Alsace. Bugatti started building cars in earnest and the Type 13 is today considered to be the first real Bugatti. The First World War proved to be temporary roadblock for Bugatti and once the Treaty of Versailles was signed on the 28^th July 1919 it was ‘back to work’! Following the War, the region of Alsace became part of France and Ettore Bugatti lost no time in refocussing his energy on automobiles. At the last minute, Bugatti was able to obtain a stand at the 15th Paris Motor Show held in October 1919. He exhibited three light cars and not surprisingly all of them were closely based on their pre-war equivalents. Each model was fitted with the same overhead camshaft 4 cylinder engine of 1,368cc capacity with four valves per cylinder. The three cars were the Type 13 (built on a 2,000 wheelbase), the Type 22 (built on a 2,250 mm wheelbase) and the Type 23 (built on a 2,400 mm wheelbase).

The Bugatti name soon became synonymous with high performance cars. Their road cars were purchased by the rich and famous and their race cars dominated on circuits all around the world. By the mid 1930’s Ettore Bugatti’s son, Jean, was effectively running the factory overseeing the production of the cars, whilst Ettore spent most of his time in Paris. Times were good, however, things changed quickly and when Jean Bugatti was killed road testing a Type 57 race car in August 1939 it was the beginning of the end. The Second World War broke out shortly thereafter and the Bugatti factory was essentially destroyed and seized. The War ended in September 1945 and attempts to restart the factory were ultimately futile.. Ettore Bugatti died in August 1947. A handful of cars were built from 1945 through until the original incarnation of Bugatti ceased operations in 1952.

Models such as the Type 35, the Type 41 (Royale), Type 57 and Type 59 have become legendary and are amongst the most desirable cars ever built.

The Bugatti Type 23 ‘Brescia’ was a series of sporty compact cars that were introduced in 1913. A descendant on the Bugatti Type 13, the Type 23 was powered by a revolutionary multivalve engine. Production of the Bugatti Type 23 lasted until 1926. It is understood that some 2,000 examples were built with engine capacities of 1,368, 1,453 and 1,496cc.

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