Alan Söderström, seen standing by his Bugatti roadster in 1965, didn't know it, but under this unusual body was a Grand Prix car. Current owner Henrik Schou-Nielsen recounts the story for VeloceToday.

By Henrik Schou-Nielsen (and staff)

Danish architect Henrik Schou-Nielsen tells us the fascinating story of a famous racing Bugatti that seemed to have disappeared over the years, only to be found at long last hiding under a striking art deco styled roadster. The discovery resulted in a 10 year project that skilfully preserved two very different Bugattis, one of which turned out to be the Grand Prix Bugatti raced by Anne-Cécile Itier in the 1930s. We’ll let Schou-Nielsen take it from here.

Itier in her T51A Bugatti at the Nurburgring in 1934.

By Gijsbert-Paul Berk

In 1913 Ettore Bugatti (1881 -1947) began working on the design of an eight-cylinder engine at the suggestion of his friend, the pilot Roland Garros. Early in 1914 he sent his collaborator Ernest Friderich to the US with a four-cylinder car of 5.655 liters capacity to participate in the Indianapolis 500. When later that year WWI started, Ettore had to leave his factory in Molsheim, situated in the German occupied Alsace.

Ettore Bugatti at the drawing board.

Type 30
When the European auto sport authority CSI announced that for the 1922 to 1924 seasons, the cubic capacity of Grand Prix engines would be limited to just two liters, Bugatti constructed a smaller engine to comply with these regulations. A team of four cars was entered in the 1922 French Grand Prix de Vitesse at Strasbourg. With its long and tapered aerodynamic body, the new Bugatti was nicknamed ‘Le Cigare’ in the French Motoring journals. But it had a successful debut with the three cars finishing second, third and fourth behind the winning Fiat.