Description
This car is Lot 108 to be auctioned by Bonhams|Cars at The Bond Street Sale 12 December, please see the Bonhams website for full details.
Public Viewing:
Available 12th December 2024 from 09:00 until 17:00, at 101 New Bond Street, London.
Lot 108
Purchased by Hugh G Conway and single-family ownership since 1978
1928 Bugatti Type 44 Grand Touring 4-seater
Registration no. DS6609
Chassis no. 441056
Frame number: 1205
Purchased by Hugh G Conway from the Molsheim Factory in 1978.
Offered from the Conway family. Ex-Hugh R G Conway Chairman of The Bugatti Trust until 2023 and regarded Bugatti Historian Hugh G Conway.
Used extensively by Hugh R G Conway in international events, up to the 2019 International Bugatti Rally USA.
This very handsome and supremely useable prestige-class four-seat tourer is offered here direct from the family of the great Bugattiste Hugh G Conway, whose career and many interests are detailed in the description for his Type 35T which Bonhams is equally privileged to offer as this Sale's Lot 7.
Hugh G Conway himself related his acquisition of this Type 44 as follows: "Way back in February 1978 when we imported the spares from the factory at Molsheim" these being the French factory's redundant spares stock, saved for the Bugatti Owners' Club in England "... I came back with the sorry remains of a Type 44, a wreck which had been lying at Molsheim for years and which they had wanted cleared out also... The car had also been cannibalised mainly to help restore the Schlumpf Collection, the engine, both axles and radiator being missing. What, however, appealed to me was the original if battered body." (Photographs on file.)
"So now I have '441056', with a frame stamped '1205', an original French registration '5313BA75', and scratched on the aluminum top plate of the dash '441056 - 820' and then an intriguing 'Weymann'. Could the body, which is steel-clad, be Weymann, or was the customer Mr. Weymann the coachbuilder? The body, which is superb in its detail, has no maker's plate and might be Bugatti or Gangloff - who knows?"
Mr Conway continued: "We got it all stripped, the frame straightened at the front, and set about finding the various parts (needed). Only the gearbox was there" Upon inspection in 2024 we can confirm that this gearbox number '820' is original to 441056 (see Mark Morris report). "I was lucky to have a spare front axle, and (secured) a rear axle from a breaker's yard in France... Marston's made a new radiator, and I did a deal on the proper wire wheels... all this took to the end of 1980."
He did a deal with fellow Bugattiste Henri Novo to swap a Type 35 crankcase for a Type 49 example ex-49434. Type 37 cylinder blocks were rebored to 69. 5mm to accept standard pistons from the factory spares. He had the body which features a very roomy half-decked rear compartment which originally would have borne a second windscreen to protect its comfortably-seated occupants restored by H&H Coachworks at Goring in the Thames valley, and in early 1981 the car was entrusted to specialist Barry Price to be painted and have the original mudguards and running boards fitted.
On October 23, 1982 and some four-and-a-half years' work this wonderful Type 44 was restarted for the first time, by tow, and over subsequent months its engine was perfected to Hugh's demanding standards and the car finally upholstered and re-trimmed by Barry Price. By May, 1984, he judged the project finally finished.
On the road with '441056' now offered here, he observed: "Rebuilding a car in central London has its own problems...(but) it was a great day when I (took) the car to a friendly MoT garage to give me the certificate... I got it and then a nice new appropriate period (registration) number 'DS 6609'; when the license document arrived I noticed that I did not need an MoT certificate for another three years!"
Once bedded-in, Hugh G Conway found that "the car after 80-100 miles felt fine, started easily and ticked over nicely... after several hundred miles it seems set to be a splendid touring car able to cruise all day at 3, 000rpm... even the Nivex petrol gauge works!".
His expectations for the car proving itself immensely useable, comfortable, capable and fun have been amply proved in the succeeding 46 years of its Conway family ownership. Not least '441056' has very successfully carried Hugh Sr and his son Hugh and grandson Giles over, literally, thousands of wonderfully evocative vintage motoring miles not only within the UK but also extensively through Europe, Japan and, indeed, the United States, across which this lovely and so-distinctive Bugatti Type 44 was driven coast-to-coast in 2019. The car was collected by Hugh and his wife Annette before they joined the Lime Rock Festival. They covered some 6, 100 miles on their trip.
Within the accompanying document file are several photographs showing the car during its pre-World War II ownership in France, plus numerous other telling images of its major component parts as found and retrieved from the historic Molsheim factory store in 1978. They show its chassis and body sections to have survived effectively complete. Some frontal damage told perhaps of an accident after which it was returned to the factory, perhaps for parts dispersal. Also included is a copy of the French Francs purchase price invoice, on contemporary Messier-Hispano-Bugatti headed paper, dated May 22, 1978, and made out to "Monsieur Conway" of Sussex Square, Hyde Park, London W2.
Also included, charmingly, is a colour photograph of HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, inspecting the car when he opened the Bugatti Trust building at Prescott on March 16, 1990 an inauguration marking the fulfilment of one of Hugh G Conway's abiding, history-preserving, ambitions.
While the early history of this particular car remains largely unverified at the time of writing, its originality is absolutely beyond question as confirmed by a message from respected French Bugatti authority Pierre Yves Laugier to Hugh R G Conway offered within the car's documentation file.
It is dated November 25, 2015, and M. Laugier states: "I can tell you that the car never left Paris from 1930 to the mid-fifties. It was re-registered with plate '5313 BA 75' on March 8, 1952 in the name of Mrs Eugenie Laraque, and passed on June 3, 1953, in the name of, I suppose, her husband Claude...".
Thence in damaged condition to the Molsheim spares store and thereafter through the Hugh G Conway six-year restoration process to many years of top-quality Bugatti motoring. The handwritten notes from Hugh G Conway and Hugh R G Conway record every journey it has embarked upon since 1978. Alongside the far afield international trips to Japan and the USA, the car has visited Molsheim, the Essen Motor show, The Campogalliano Rally, the Rally Sardinia, a huge number of VSCC tests and rallies along with BOC garden parties and Next Generation Rallies, of course trips to the Trust at Prescott. The last notes confirm the car was on display at the Bugatti Trust for 24 weeks before returning home in 2021. A report by Mark Morris is available on request.
The car has been in long term storage with Mr Conway, then Gentry restorations. Offered directly from Hugh R G Conway, it requires recommissioning before road use after a period of storage. We absolutely commend this magnificently useable Bugatti to the market.
All lots are sold 'as is/ where is' and Bidders must satisfy themselves as to the provenance, condition, age, completeness and originality prior to bidding. Visit the Bonhams Motorcycles website for all pertinent auction information.
