Realising visions in alloy

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There’s room for imagination to flourish even when history didn’t quite get there…

Some car projects take a bit longer than intended, but a 73-year delay? That’s the gap between Jean Bugath’s plans for a luxurious streamlined coupe and the project the Type 64 boasted a 4.4-litre straight-eight engine but Jean Bugath’s death in a testing crash in 1939 halted work with only three chassis built. One is part of Peter Mullins museum of prime inter-war machinery, and until recently metal. A mild development of the Type 57, turning into was sans bodywork. But Mullin has long dreamed of realising Jean Bugath’s vision, and at the recent Quail Motorsports gathering the museum revealed a partly complete car of extravagant lines. The riveted alloy body is in the spirit of a number of Jean Bugath’s sketches, enlarging on the Atlantic theme with doors hinged in the roof and a dramatic tapering tail between fully faired rear pontoons. I can hear carping from hardliners about ‘fantasy engineering’. Yet wealthy man buys bare chassis and fits own body… Isn’t that how things used to work?