Mystery of Bugatti La Voiture Noire

18th of February 1941 a freight train was loaded with tools valuable machinery and precious cars it was in route to the French city of Bordeaux in an attempt to escape from the Nazi destruction a life's worth of work and a personal Masterpiece all depends on this operation however train never arrived at its destination and all of its traces were lost or is it this is the story of Bugatti Laur Noir [Music] John Bugatti son of the famous ere Bugatti is an automotive designer and test engineer his interest in cars started at an early age and

he proved his vehicle design abilities at late 1920s in 1932 he designed most of the type 41 Royale at the age of 23 he and his father made perfect combination his designs combined with his father's engineering made Bugatti a pin in the automotive industry in the following years he designed bodies for the type 57 and on top of that he expanded his engineering knowledge this resulted in many significant improvements in type 57 series cars such as independent suspension system twin cam engine and many more unfortunately his Innovations were kept short due to a tragic accident

Jean loved testing the cars that they've built on 11th of August 1939 he was driving a type 57 nicknamed tank with a similar car their team won the 24-hour Lal in 1939 since that this remained as the latest Lal race that Bugatti has ever won for the test drive he set himself a target of 200 kmph during the drive he blew past that and reached 235 however he lost control of his car and hit a tree in order to avoid a cyclist for some this is the event that eventually started the downhill of Bugatti in

those years the type 50 7 is a car series that was produced between 1934 and 1940 in total 710 cars were produced the type 57 has many variants to better understand them first we need to know some model name abbreviations the T abbreviation stands for tourer or torpedo the C stands for compressure indicating that models with C are fitted with superchargers the S stands for sur base which means performance model with lower chassis and finally G possibly stands for Grand Tor because model with this variant one French Grand Prix and Lal keeping these in mind

first we have the original type 57 the base model with 3.3 L 135 horsepower engine that pushes car to the top speed of 153 kmph then there is T variant C variant and last but not least the 57 c tank variant all all of them are derived from the base model and have many similarities and this is where type 57s and SC variants come in these are the ones that feature marvelous engineering and design capabilities of Bugatti number 57331 the chassis number of the first prototype type 57 la arol le it was a New Concept

back then it featured a magnesium based electron alloy body on top of a shortened type 57 and Chassis this was a special kind of alloy that is durable and very lightweight however it had a major problem it became very flammable on high temperatures therefore welding it was not possible Bugatti solved this problem by getting inspiration from aircraft manufacturing instead of welding they riveted panels together which lead to the iconic fin design of the type 57 however people are doubtful about the design Choice until they ride in the car the Prototype was displayed in some and

it was driven by the race car driver William Williams Grover during these demonstration runs people were very impressed by the performance of the vehicle and nickname la arol le meteorite was given to the car this brings us to the production series of the car they had many similarities with the Prototype including the shortened chassis however there is one major difference the body material in production cars Bugatti decided to use aluminum instead of magnesium which solved the w in issue but for a signature design they've kept the riveted fins that said Aviation inspiration was not exclusive

to these fins the production series was named after Jean Bugatti's friend Jean marmos he is a legend in aviation and the first pilot to cross the South Atlantic Ocean unfortunately on one of his flights he went missing and was never found it was assumed that the plane suffered an engine failure and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean once jeene heard about the accident he changed the name of the Car Series from Coupe Arrow to Atlantic Coupe also the accident occurred in the middle of production so two cars were produced under each name in total there are

four cars produced in the Atlantic series first one was 57 374 it was completed in 2nd of September 1936 it had a metallic gray blue color and it had a base configuration without a supercharger however its owner wanted more performance and sent it back to Bugatti to fit a supercharger charger speaking of the owner he is no other than Victor Rothchild the third Baron between 1939 to 1941 he used the car however in 1941 the supercharger malfunctioned and engine blew up so he left it in the field after that the car changed a few hands

in 1945 an American doctor bought the car and bring it to the US in 1946 it was sold to a Bugatti Enthusiast Mike Oliver over the years he convered converted car to us spec painted red and replace the supercharger in 1970 he sold it to Briggs Cunningham and a year later the car was sold to Peter Williamson He restored car to its original state and owned it for 32 years until he passed away after that car was sold to a private collector and today it was showcased in the Mullen Automotive Museum now let's skip the

second one we will come back to it in a minute the third one was 57 473 it was completed on 1936 and and delivered to jacqu Holz in World War II he and his wife were killed by Nazis and the car started to change hands from 1949 to 1955 it had three different owners and had some modifications latest owner Renee Shard changed its color from black to a light blue this detail is important because it caused some conspiracies we will cover this in a minute August of 1955 the car suffered a train crash killing chatard

the car parts were were sequestered by the railroad company until the lawsuit settled in 1963 the car was restored by Bugatti Enthusiast Paul Andre Bon however due to extensive damage he used some non-original parts he eventually sold car to the Nicholas sidu in 1977 however sidu was not happy with the restoration and decided to restore it to its blue spec main goal was to maintain car in a stable working order by using as much original parts as possible with the collap collaboration of best Bugatti restorers this Vision was turned into a reality this brings us

to the final production of Atlantic series cars 5 7591 since it was the last car it had some design updates mainly the facelifted front and exposed rear wheels it was built for the tennis player and Barrister Richard B Pope and it originally had deep blue color just like the first car Richard Pope wanted to add a supercharger and sent car to the Bugatti Factory in 1939 he kept his car for 30 years and after that he sold it to Bugatti specialist Barry price he kept it for another 10 years after that it changed hands two

more times and in 1988 Ralph Lauren bought the car He restored car to its original 1938 version but changed its color to Black even with that car is evaluated at $100 million and still belongs to Ralph Lauren collection at this point we covered three out of four cars there is only one remain 5 7453 it is no other than Laur Noir according to the official page of Bugatti Jean Bugatti made Laur Noir for himself and only allowed certain individuals to drive it appeared on some motor shows however its traces were lost in 1938 there are

some theories like car changing hands or relocating to safety so let's start exploring them as we mentioned earlier there are four cars total in the series three of them were painted black throughout their history the 574 53 and 574 73 were originally black from the factory and the 5759 was painted under the ownership of Ralph Lauren this is important because LA vur Noir literally means black car this raises the question is 5 s453 actually even produced or is it just a nickname for one of these cars well there is a clear answer to that Gabriel

om Duo he was an architect an entrepreneur and also a Bugatti customer in addition to that he has an interesting personality he raced on the Monte Carlo rally the Le Rome lez Road marathon and was involved in a trans Saharan Journey from Brussels to kga his involvement in Bugattis was likely because of a friendship formed at one of these events one such possibility could be that he met Louie Alexander chyon during the Monte Carlo rally this was likely the case because he later sourced his Bugatti from Ernest juel friederick who was a patron of Louis

Chiron back then regardless he owned a Bugatti type 57s atalante the 57562 according to the book Bugatti type 57s the color scheme of the car was different from type 57s SS it was more like the original type 57s this could indicate that dooho may be a customer who likes customizations however there is one more important detail in that book apparently a Factory document states that a car named belga Coupe was ordered by Gabriel Duo and has the chassis number 5745 4 a quick search shows that 5745 4 was a tank variant of type 57 this

makes things a bit complicated because according to this post the number 5745 4 was used on five different cars it is known that numbers can be reissued for example the 57453564 57 convertible that aside there is some evidence that supports the claim that the claim that duo actually owned the car and drove it the first one comes from the family members of Gabriel Duo's wife teress go vers her relative told her that she remembered a blue car that was damaged by a young soldier who stole it in 1946 also there is an excerpt from the

book Bugatti yesterday and today which states that it has been suggested that originally in 1937 this chassis was used for a tank for the lumon race and that it was later used in an Atlantic sold to a Belgian named Doo who of Brussels color Bugatti blue it seems like LA vur Noir was successfully produced and possibly had an owner more interestingly it may have had a blue color and a chassis number of 574 53 or 574 54 that said these raise more questions than answers Pierre Eve loer is the Bugatti specialist who first presented the

idea that Laur Noir was actually a different car before that it was believed Laur Noir was a factory nickname for Holtz hushes 5747 3 given that they had many similarities this doesn't seem far off however this creates an immense problem up until Pierre's statement resources were written under the assumption that 5747 3 and 57453564 were the same one contradiction comes from a quote in this book Gino explained that Marco told him that Jean had certain changes made to the car in 1938 or 1939 extension of the rear fenders pontoon style substitution of louvered ventilation on

the sides and top of the hood the louvers on this example are unique the Pontoon style means uninterrupted and fullwidth car lines eliminating unnecessary Ledges this is a clue that we can observe from pictures of Rene chard's 5747 3 according to the quote Jean Bugatti made the changes however Pier Eve loer states that the Holtz H car was probably not available for xan Bugatti between 1938 and 1939 instead the modification was made after the war but there is more in another book the Bugatti type 57s it was stated that a apparently they returned the car

at short notice in 1937 and took another type 57 although there is no further entry concerning this in the factory reports this is interesting because 1937 corresponds to the exact year when Gabriel duho took delivery of his car keep in mind that Supercar production and modification are slow processes even in 2024 let alone 1939 it was difficult to access materials and required a Workforce in the war years so this may be a depiction of dooh who's 57562 on top of that there is an article by Christian hwit there he mentions that a modification was requested

by Robert Ben was who was known to be a race driver who drove lav vur Noir so it is a possibility that Jean Bugatti modified it there is also another article written by a French historian Jess pore there Poe mentions that LA vur Noir was sold by Ernest Friedrich remember that he is the one who supplied d with a Bugatti so according to that the one who took the car to the factory in 1937 can be doho instead of Holtz Shooks moving on to 1939 we have access to a few more important details first it

was the year when lav vur Noir was documented as a black colored car second the chassis number changed so there must be something that happened to the loveo tanir in 1939 because it was the year that 5745 4 was a assigned to a type 64 car in order to carry that change the car again has to come to a factory now remember the train mentioned at the beginning of this video well this is where it may be used there was a list of automotive materials stored in Bordeaux and in that list there is a mention

of shazzy number 5 7454 so in fact the car arrived in Bordeaux safely on top of that there is another mention of a blue car in P's article so this again confirms the memory of the family member in 1946 about the blue Bugatti and from all of those it brings up the possibility that the car actually survived the war and was owned by dooho up until 1946 yet there are still many uncertainties there are documents and articles about changing superchargers modified bodies and swapped axles on top of that one of the owners of 5 s473

Pierre Bon comp had a car that looked much like a Bugatti a talbet logo t150 CSS so the truth of the modifications may still be very hazy in the end the destiny of lav vur Noir is still a mystery could Gabriel duho have sold his car during his sickness or perhaps he transferred to a high society member or the car has been scrapped and its parts were used in other cars I personally have no guesses in 2019 Bugatti released a masterpiece carrying the name LA vur Noir as a tribute to the original one even the

new version has its own Mystery about who the owner is I guess we will always have some mystery around the cars both the original and the new one