The car you see on these pages is the mechanical equivalent of the score of The Rite of Spring, hand annotated by Igor Stravinsky himself; the working sketches for Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase; or perhaps a preserved print of The Battle of Gettysburg, recovered from the possessions director of Thomas Ince. This is a piece of art, first and foremost, and one intimately and physically connected with the artist himself, Ettore Bugatti.
Just ask Alan Travis, who spent 3,500 hours (that’s 437½ eight-hour workdays) resurrecting his 1913 Bugatti Type 22 from a 90-year slumber. Alan says, “It’s like working on a sculpture after Michaelangelo.”
Indeed, the artist himself signed and initialed the castings throughout the powertrain. The Type 22 also represents the debut of the trademark horseshoe radiator, still seen on modern Volkswagen-built Bugattis. Earlier creations by “Le Patron” looked like remarkably generic brassera cars. You wouldn’t know they were Bugattis unless someone told you.
“People say that Mr. Bugatti was making automobiles from 1898 on, but it wasn’t until 1912-ish that he started making his own car with his own name on it. That’s why he did the signature on my car and a few others in 1913—he signed the cylinder head himself.” There’s a note of awe in Alan’s voice
