Editor: Jaap Horst
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At the beginning of 1939, the Bugatti factory was once again in serious
financial trouble. Sale of new cars
had dropped to fewer than 5 per month, for the first seven months in 1939. The debt at the bank in Strasbourg now amounted to more than 20
Million Francs and if fate had not intervened, bankruptcy would have become
unavoidable. The French government decided to impose a new policy: Bugatti was to be made part of the military machine being ordered to produce plane parts for the French air force. The government decided to relocate the entire factory to Bordeaux. Bugatti made an inventory of the remaining stock of cars and other material. This article researches the fate of those cars, some of which were finished as rolling chassis, some were unfinished and a number of cars from clients that were at that moment present were also recorded. Click here to read the article! As the article was written in 2014, information especially on current owners is not up-to date.
This article appeared first in Bugantics in 2014 (Vol 77, no 2)
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