A MYSTERY SOLVED

A MYSTERY SOLVED

The mystery of my 2.3-litre unsupercharged Bugatti which was illustrated in the April MOTOR SPORT and on which a note Was included in the June issue, has been partly solved. In answer to a ” circular ” I sent to the owners shown in the registration book, Mr. P. F. Norton wrote from Cape Town and gave some interesting details of the car’s early history. (Incidentally, I misquoted his name as North in my original letter.) Mr. Norton

bought the car from L. G. Bachelier in 1986, when it was a If-litre G.P. ; following a big-end failure, Bachelier installed the present 2.8-litre unsupercharged engine. So we can forget about 85 Ts in considering the car as a whole. Mr. Norton also mentions that the car was originally purchased by Sir Malcolm Campbell, who raced it on the Continent in the early ‘twenties, and that it then passed to the Rolls-Royce Company, being ultimately taken over by the then

Works Manager. I hope to get some more data on these two phases of the car’s career. The engine number, which is stamped on the back left-hand engine bearer, remains a. mystery. As you mentioned in your note, it reads 44/14618 B, the 44 being on top like the numerator of a vulgar fraction. As Mr. Clark and others have pointed out, the first two digits generally signify the type number, but neither 44 nor 14 make much sense here. Mr. Clark wonders whether the car is in fact a 2.3, hut I can assure him From several years’ intimate acquaintance with the ma.ellinery that the stroke is 100 mm. and that the spacing plate he mentions is in positiou.—Cf.sun POWRTZ