Bugatti Type 35B - Monaco Grand Prix 1929 and 1930
Car scale model kit in 1/12 scale manufactured by Italeri (ref. 4710, also 8001283047104)

Artist and engineer. Ettore Bugatti tried many times to fuse beauty with the ability to win races in a car. After some notable failures, the Type 35 emerged as the design of an eccentric genius.

There is no doubt that Ettore Bugatti took the 1924 French Grand Prix in Lyon very seriously, as he arrived at the circuit with a team of six brand-new racing cars plus a remarkable entourage: 30 tons of spare parts in three train cars and two trucks with trailers, luxury tents and beds for 45 people, showers, kitchen, and the huge house on wheels of the Bugatti family pulled by another truck. With such a huge “circus” Bugatti had to be in the news, but it was the six new competition cars, which arrived rolling down the road, one of them driven by Bugatti himself, that attracted the most attention. It was the public premiere of the Type 35, featuring an advanced design with a unique blend of beauty and functionality in which all body and chassis elements were harmoniously united.

One of the novel elements of the Type 35 were the rims, made of cast aluminum with eight wide flat spokes and integrated drum brakes, which had the great advantage that they were much cheaper to manufacture than those with spokes. and they did not require the long and tedious adjustment of the same to ensure perfect concentricity. The idea of integrating the brake drums into the rims was intended to allow the brake pads to be changed at the same time as the tires, although some misalignments in the turning of the drums complicated the operation in more than one Grand Prix. Bugatti's concern for detail shows in things like the brake pedal with its compensator to ensure that the braking balance was equal on both sides of the car.

During most of its active life the Bugatti Type 35 used water-cooled 8-cylinder in-line engines with a displacement of 2 or 2.3 liters, with 3 valves per cylinder (2 intake and one exhaust) actuated by a single overhead camshaft. This cylinder head layout initially proved highly inefficient, and the adoption of a gear-driven three-lobe Roots-type supercharger was inevitable on the Type 35B from 1926. The 2-litre Type 35 engine produced about 90 hp, and about 120 hp supercharged. The 2.3-litre 35T also produced around 120 bhp, with supercharged 2.3-litre derivatives approaching 140 bhp.

The Bugatti 35 was perhaps Ettore Bugatti's most accomplished model, winning over 1,800 races in its working life.