Bugatti is synonymous with some of the most sought after vintage automobiles, racing thoroughbreds, and cutting-edge hyper cars. The old vehicles developed by Ettore Bugatti have a Type number. The Type 35 is without a doubt the first model you would associate with Bugatti, and remains one of the most successful racing cars of all time, with over 2,000 victories in a racing career that lasted nearly ten years. But have you ever thought about what the Type 1 Bugatti may be? Let’s rewind the clock to 1898, a time when the combustion era started to gain traction.
Ettore Bugatti was born into an artistic family in Milan, and from an early age showed aptitude for design and mechanics. As a young lad, Bugatti was fixing up small engines with little to no training, and when he reached the age of 16, he took the next step into an internship at Prinetti e Stucchi. Prinetti e Stucchi was a small Milan based mechanical workshop that produced wine corks, sewing machines, and later down the line, bicycles. As with many other companies at the end of the 19th century, Prinetti e Stucchi began to experiment with the power of fuel, and soon purchased a license to produce De Dion tricycles for the Italian market.
It was this move that afforded Ettore the freedom of creation and innovation, and chance to develop his passion for combustion, right at the beginning of this exciting era.
Bugatti got straight on it, and before long he had created a motorised tricycle for the company that featured designed a tricycle with a De Dion Bouton engine and Rochet-Schneider chassis. It was 1899 and the start of the automotive boom.
It all tied in with the foundation of the Italian Automobile Club, which announced a forthcoming race in Reggio Emilia. Prinetti e Stucchi spotted an opportunity to put their name on the map, and so Bugatti was handed the task of making the new tricycle race ready. Bugatti strapped in a second De Dion motor, and won the 90km race on his creation. Interestingly, there were quite a few other entrants who went on to become curators of the automotive world, including Giovanni Agnelli and Carlo Biscaretti who later founded Fiat, and Scipione Prince of Borghese who later won the famous Rallye Paris to Peking. The trike produced a world-record average speed of 64km/h. If Bugatti didn’t already have the spark, there is no doubt that he now did.
The tricycle was designated as the Type 1, a rolling incremented title that was attached to Bugatti machines moving forward. Bugatti used the Type 1 for three more races in the same year where he won two of them, before concentrating on four-wheels, starting with the Type 2.
Prinetti e Stucchi later became Stucchi & Co when Giulio Prinetti left the company to become Foreign Minister, and in 1901 it presented the first two-wheeled motorcycle powered by a Motosacoche engine of 2¾hp. The firm continued to produce motorcycles for a number of years and was one of the largest suppliers to the Italian Army during the First World War. Once the war had settled, Stucchi & Co. initially offered a JAP 998cc sidevalve V-twin, however it had little success and so they downsized to 350cc and 500cc singles until it shut up shop in 1926.
The Type 1 was the catalyst that propelled Bugatti to the next level, and he went on to produce several car designs for other companies before setting up a small factory in France in 1909, where for more than 30 years he invented and produced some of the most incredible motor cars, engines, tools and railway rolling stock.
The Bugatti Trust, based at Prescott Hill in Cheltenham, is a small museum dedicated to the works of Ettore Bugatti. In 2020, the Prinetti e Stucchi tricycle (the Type 1) was loaned to the museum from the Swiss Pearl Collection in celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Trust.
This great video, produced by Stefan Marjoram for the museum, discusses the Type 1 and shows it started up with fine use of the controls, and a positive churn of the pedals. There will be very few occasions where you can see this happen, so take a watch!
Thanks to Stefan for allowing us to use this images which he snapped at Prescott. Stefan is an incredible artist, and captures vehicles in a unique fashion. Visit his website at stefanmarjoram.com to look at some of his work.
The Bugatti Trust is well worth a visit and has an amazing educational section as well as an assortment of beautiful old Bugatti’s. Visit the website at: www.bugatti-trust.co.uk
an article by The Girder Club
If you would like to be kept up-to-date with the latest news and information on vintage motorcycles, feel free to sign up to our newsletter, which we aim to ping out each month.
Leave a Reply