Colour: Dark blue with dark tan interior Cylinders: 8; 3,257cc Gears: 4 + reverse Power: 135bhp Produced: 1951-1956 Production: 7 Bugatti never recovered from the tragic death of founder Ettore’s son Jean, then aged just 29, shortly before the outbreak of war in 1939.

Jean Bugatti had been forbidden to race but regularly tested cars, and it was while driving Wimille/Veyron’s 1939 Le Mans winner on what should have been a closed road near the factory that he swerved to avoid a bicycling postman and was killed when the Type 57C rolled.

The war and its immediate aftermath left the Molsheim factory devastated, and then on 21st August 1947 Ettore Bugatti died, leaving six heirs to the estate.

In September 1949 the Bugatti factory decided to manufacture a batch of 16 further examples of their pre-war Type 57/57C model, but evidently only three were completed.

For a time the company concentrated on sub-contracted engineering work before Roland Bugatti made an attempt to re-launch the marq...