Ettore Bugatti’s first true production automobile, the Type 13 was based upon the engineering of his original prototype Petit Pur Sang , or “Little Thoroughbred,” whose light and nimble character would typify all of his future creations.

The Type 13 rode a frame with leaf springs at all four corners, and it carried a wonderful little four-cylinder engine with a four-valve cylinder head of Bugatti’s own devise.

While the standard model supported a two-passenger body, it soon evolved, with the Type 22 offering a larger roadgoing body, oval radiator, and semi-elliptical springs.

The car offered here, chassis number 580, carries an especially seductive little piece of coachwork: a taper-tailed tourer with narrow, wing-like fenders.

It bears the maker’s plate of Carrosserie Chauvet, 88 Rue Fez Ileau, Levallois, a tiny firm active from 1912 until 1929 that produced bodies for all the most superb French chassis of the era; this is believed to be their only surviving creation on a Bugatti....