Bugatti - Bugatti Type 35
The Bugatti type 35 came about after Ettore Bugatti had built his "cigar shaped" 2 litre GP car based on the T30 , and had no doubt been inspired by the 2 litre GP Fiat he'd seen, and everything fell into place, as he described to the Juneks in his letter describing his next project. The Bugatti Type 35 was built for the 2 litre GP formula that was in force between 1922 and 1925, and for reliability a roller bearing crankshaft was used which at the time meant there was little likelihood of bearing failure as has been experienced on his previous Straight 8 cylinder 2 litre that had conventional white metal bearings. The Type 35 bristled with delightful design from the bodywork and it's fittings to the one piece hollow front axle (fitted to the genuine race cars), advance /retard mechanism, dainty sized dumb irons and a gear change that was incredibly fast. The first cars were normally aspirated 2 litre, and when the G.P. formula changed for 1926 and 1927 to 1.5 litre the GP cars were the Type 39, of which there were many variations. The 1926 Targa Florio race was free of a capacity limit and the only stretching that could be done was a marginally longer throw crank in the existing crankcase increasing the original capacity by just over 10% to 2261cc. In Sicily for the Targa Florio these 2.3 Bugattis came home in the first three places, and this larger engined Bugatti T35 model was called the Targa, and when the "Targa" got given a supercharger later it became the Targa Compressor, 35TC, or what is now called the 35B, which was very useful after the 1.5 litre GP formula came to an end, after which racing was to Formula Libre and limited by weight. The big development on the Type 35 came during the 1.5 litre formula where a lot of effort was put into competing with the Delage. By the Spanish GP in 1927 one of the Bugattis was outperforming the Delage (but crashed) so for the next and final GP of the formula much work was done with larger brake size, and a slew of other modifications, but the Brooklands venue was no road circuit. While other factory teams would build 3 or 4 cars per season for their own works team, Bugatti also produced his GP team cars, but also supplied cars for whoever wanted to break into racing even at the top flight, hence most races were dominated by Bugattis! And occasionally a privateer may even beat the Bugatti factory works team, as Rene Dreyfus did at Monaco. After some seven years of Type 35 development, the twin overhead camshaft version of the T35 became the Type 51, with a number of T35's also later being converted by the factory to 51 specification .
Tyre sizes used for the different Bugatti Type 35:
- The earlier T35 Bugatti with alloy wheels used the beaded edge tyre size 710x90, and Blockley produce the perfect 710x90 tyre and tube to suit these earlier Bugattis.
- The early cars after well base wheels started to be used would now have the 450x19 tyre size. The well researched Blockley 450x19 is the most authentic 1920's tyre you can source in this 450x19 size, so be aware of other brands claiming their overly fat and minimal tread depth 450x19, or deep treaded dual marked tyres are somehow period authentic! The Blockley 450x19 tyre is perfect.
- Bugatti Type 35A (marketed by Bugatti as the Tecla) tyre size would use a 450x19, which is the closest to the in period 27x4.40, (later called 4.40x19) they had in period - the superb quality Blockley 450x19 tyre is as close as you can get to what Bugatti fitted in period.
- All other Bugatti 35 types (35B and 35C) use the 500x19 tyre size. We note that some tyre wholesaler outlets seem to think these supercharged Bugattis were fitted with smaller 450x19 tyres in period, but that is not correct. The tyre size Bugatti supplied these cars with was 28x4.95 (which is the 500x19 size).
- A really good option for the non supercharged cars is 450x19 front tyres to all four wheels, but many customers choose to fit the Blockley 475x19 tyres on the rear. . .
- Note that in period all inner tubes had a metal valve stem, which Blockley produces the perfect correctly dimensioned thick examples of, with nickel plated valve stems as they originally had. The rubber valve stem had not yet been invented, but we make these tubes also. If fitting to wire wheels don't forget to fit rim bands to the wheels, which we also produce.
- See listed below full details of all the tyre sizes mentioned.
