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Why the Bugatti Type 41 Was a Royale Failure in Period
It may be painted in two-tone blue and black, but the Bugatti Royale Type 41 Coupe Napoleon was a white elephant.
Too big, too expensive, too tricky to maintain, and delivered at precisely the wrong moment in time, it’s almost as if Rembrandt Bugatti knew what would happen when he sculpted the chrome pachyderm that sits atop the imposing radiator grille.
But where did it start and where did it all go wrong for what was once the world’s most expensive new car?
“Nothing is too beautiful, nothing is too expensive,” Ettore Bugatti is reported to have claimed, and that appeared to be the rationale behind the Royale. It was to be a motor car for the monarchy, an automobile for empires, and it was to have no competition.
That would start with its unsurpassed powertrain, which was based on an airplane engine designed for the French government in 1927. For the Type 41, Bugatti actually downsized the inline eight-cylinder from 14.7 liters to ‘just’ 12.8 liters. Nonetheless, it still made the same 300 hp as it did in flight configuration.
Fed by a single carburetor, the Royale’s engine also offered dry sump lubrication, nine plain bearings, and a shaft that drove the camshaft off the crank. Mated to the engine was a three-speed manual transmission with a multi-plate dry clutch.
Braking was courtesy of cable-operated drums, which were cast in one piece with the 24-inch solid alloy wheels. As Ettore Bugatti also said, “I build my cars to go, not to stop.” Suspension featured a semi-elliptic leaf spring arrangement up front and twin quarter-elliptical springs at the rear.
It’s only seeing the Royale in the metal (at the incredible Schlumpf Collection), that it’s clear just how massive the Royale’s chassis needed to be to accommodate its running gear. The wheelbase is 4.3 meters (169 inches), and the total length is more than six meters (236 inches). That’s Ford F-150 territory.
Yet, despite the car’s prodigious external proportions, it’s far from spacious for its occupants. As was common at the time, Bugatti supplied the rolling chassis to customers who would commission a coachbuilder to craft the body and interior. In the case of the Coupe Napoleon, it first wore coachwork by Packard, but was then rebodied by Weymann, and again after Ettore fell asleep at the wheel and crashed it. In its final form, the chauffeur and mechanic would ride up front in the open, working the ivory-handled switches while the passengers would luxuriate in the rear.
Except that it wasn’t actually that luxurious. While the squishy bench seat is certainly comfortable, legroom is surprisingly tight and you sit right on top of the rear axle, which means you feel every imperfection in the road. How do I know? Well, I was very briefly driven around the Schlumpf Collection’s test track, and despite it being smoothly paved, I’d definitely have spilled my champagne (if I’d had some). The glass roof is a nice touch, and only relatively recently back in vogue, while the soft fabrics and warm wood would add a lovely ambience to any journey. Road trips would also be hushed affairs as the engine, which only revs to 1800 rpm, is very subdued, and should esteemed passengers wish to communicate with the staff, they would do it by intercom. One such discussion might well have been about luggage as there’s no space for any—not even a rack for your Louis Vuitton steamer trunks. Perhaps buyers would simply send their things ahead by train?
Another drawback for owners (or their mechanics at least) was the necessity of regularly removing and grinding each of the 24 valves, which required significant dismantling of the engine.
Finally, there was the price. A Royale Chassis was at least 100,000 Reichsmarks. That was around $24,000 in 1930 or nigh on half a million dollars in today’s money. Now consider the global economic and political landscape of the time. The U.S. was in the depths of the Great Depression and Europe was in turmoil.
The King of Spain had ordered a Royale, but by the time it was ready, he had been deposed in the country’s civil war. In total, Bugatti built just six Royales, and only four were sold. You’ll find two of them at the museum in Mulhouse, and one at Bugatti’s home in Molsheim, with the final one in private hands.
“Despite its extraordinary features, the Royale did not go on to be an economic success,” admits Bugatti on its website, a century after it was first conceived. Arguably that’s no longer true, with Royale values topping $50 million today. It just took a hundred years or so to get there.
There is a Bugatti Royale at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI.
It was donated to the Ford Museum by Charles Chayne and his wife Esther. Chayne had been chief engineer at Buick and later VP of GM. He bought the car in 1943 for a paltry sum, some sources say as little as $75, repaired the cracked engine block, changed the carburetion to four carbs, and modified the brakes.
Was there one in Bill Harrah’s Museum back in the 1970s-80s? Seem to remember seeing it there among the 100 plus Ford Model Ts and the Ferrari 412 MI that I literally was drooling over!
I visited the Harrah collection just after a major sell off of a substantial portion of the inventory. If memory serves, one of the sales was the Royale, and it was still waiting to be delivered. I saw it in a grouping of others in the sale.
I later saw three of them together, but for the life of me, I can’t remember where.
All six (6) appeared at the Pebble Beach Concours in 1985. They were displayed on the putting green that’s now used for the annual display of luxury and supercar prototypes. Why the author didn’t make mention of this is beyond me.
One of the cars at Monterey was a Jean Bugatti designed open roadster that lacked headlights (as the owner never drove at night). The original chassis for that car was rebodied by Binder (now at Molsheim). The roadster Royale was reconstructed by the Schlumph collection on an unfinished Type 41 chassis that was left over, or was built up from Bugatti spares (Depends what story you believe). The “Schlumph Collection” built the car from spares and drawings, before it was taken over by the French government, becoming the “National Automobile Collection”).Of all the Type 41s, this is the most stunning, so perfectly designed, as there is no reference to its immense size until someone sits in the driver’s seat and takes hold of the enormous steering wheel.
Visited my folks living in Carson City at the time (’65, ’66), and as dad was a car buff, went to see the fabulous Harrah Collection. We went through the restoration shop as part of the tour, and I vividly remember the Royal frame, engine, and engine turned dash and steering column. One huge sculpture of metal to burn into one’s mind. I don’t remember if the front and rear axles/wheels were on it or not. Beautiful exotic car for those whose pocketbooks were never empty.
Yes there is…I first saw it 30 some years ago and have never forgotten it.
IIRC extra Royale engines went on to power railcars for the French National Railways.
The rich really are different from you and me. This is basically exactly the same size as my 1990 F250. The Ford also offers cramped seating for four and the biggest engine available at the time (7.5 liter V8). Now, it has enough cargo room to haul two full sized motorcycles, where the Royale doesn’t have room for a toothbrush, but hey. Thanks for explaining just how absurd a vehicle this was. I built a model of this example when I was in junior high, but I felt it should have Ferrari red accent panels instead of blue, because of a picture I’d seen of a Type 50. I guess authentic restoration has never been my priority 🙂
Saw a Royale at the Iola show in WI in the late 80’s. Imposing does not do it justice. The Cadillac Sixteen show car from the 00’s gave me a similar feeling. The General could have easily afforded to lose a few tens of millions on a run of those. And in time revered like the Royale-and done wonders for the reputation. That will never happen with the Celestiq. The unreplaceable batteries will be dead for many years by then.
it’s a nice looking car. 12.8 liters of inline V8 is quite crazy.
Boy, you got that right! An inline V8! Who knew?!?
An “inline V8” ??? How about a straight 8?
Tom Monaghan who founded Domino’s Pizza and owned the Detroit Tigers bought on in 1986 for $8.1 million which was a record at that time. I have seen one of these cars several years ago when it was in the Peterson Museum. It is an enormous car.
The car in the Ford Museum was found in a junk yard. I believe the yard was on Long Island NY. Also all 6 cars were photographed together in 1985 at Pebble Beach
The car that was in the Harrah museum was in Atlanta in a museum called The Stable Of The Thoroughbreds which was owned by Mills Lane who owned The bank of Georgia and the largest collection of cast iron mechanical banks. The collection was auctioned off in 1964 when Mr. Lanes interests shifted to restoring tall ships and blocks of historical brownstones in Savannah Ga. The car did not go through the auction , Bill Harrah contacted Mr. Lane before the sale and bought the car for a rumored $50,000 , . A restorer in Montgomery Ala. Bob Londsdale picked it up and restored it for a rumored $28,000 , we were all amazed that Harrah would have $78,000 in a car that he had never seen.
Many of the faults listed in the article are due to the design of the coachwork, not Bugatti. This is the third body for this chassis. Were the other coachwork designs as limited as this one with respect to roominess, comfort, and luggage accommodation?
The Spanish king was not deposed in the Spanish Civil War; he left Spain after elections in 1931. The Spanish Civil War started in 1936 with Franco’s military revolt against the popularly-elected government.
As noted above by Cornbinder, all 6 Royales were displayed at Pebble on the putting green. It was a magnificent sight that I will never forget.
The “chrome pachyderm” hood ornament mentioned in the article’s second paragraph is obscured in the main photo of this motorcar. The marque badge and everything else is tack sharp, and it’s difficult to see the hood ornament in any of the photos or the video. Are we not allowed to see it? We’ve all seen a naked elephant or two in our times.
I saw one at the Mullin museum in CA a number of years ago. Hard to imagine the scale until you are standing right next to it – massive! It was said to be on loan from Volkswagen, who apparently owned it – at least at that time.