By the early 1930s Ettore Bugatti had established an unrivalled reputation for building cars with outstanding performance on road or track; the world’s greatest racing drivers enjoying countless successes aboard the Molsheim factory’s products and often choosing them for their everyday transport.

In 1927 Bugatti had produced the Type 43 Grand Sport - the first 100mph Grand Prix-engined sporting chassis suitable for everyday road use.

It was in effect a close-coupled four-seater touring model powered by the supercharged Type 35B Grand Prix engine.

Because of its lengthy run of success, Ettore Bugatti remained stubbornly committed to this single-cam engine, only adopting the more advanced double-overhead-camshaft method of valve actuation, after much prompting by his eldest son Jean, on the Type 50 of 1930.

From then on Jean Bugatti took greater responsibility for design, his first car being the exquisite Type 55 roadster, a model ranking among the finest sports cars of the 1930s.

T...