Bugatti Type 55 Super Sport

Bugatti Type 55 Super Sport

The Bugatti Type 55 Super Sport is one of the most beautiful and desirable automobiles of the pre-war era, a road car built around a genuine Grand Prix racing engine. Produced in minuscule numbers between 1932 and 1935, the Type 55 married the mechanical ferocity of Bugatti's racing program with the aesthetic refinement that was Ettore Bugatti's hallmark. It remains one of the most sought-after cars by collectors of pre-war machinery, with surviving examples commanding prices that reflect both their extraordinary rarity and their status as rolling sculptures.

The Type 55's mechanical heart was derived directly from the Type 51 Grand Prix car, which itself was one of the most successful racing machines of the early 1930s. The engine was a 2,262 cc supercharged twin-overhead-cam straight-eight, a masterpiece of precision engineering that produced approximately 135 horsepower, an extraordinary figure for a 2.3-liter engine in 1932. The Roots-type supercharger was mounted at the front of the engine and force-fed the mixture through a single Bugatti updraft carburetor, producing the distinctive supercharger whine that is one of the most evocative sounds in automotive history.

Ettore Bugatti was as much an artist as an engineer, and the Type 55 reflected his insistence that mechanical beauty was inseparable from functional excellence. The engine itself was a work of art, with polished castings and precisely machined components that were intended to be admired as well as used. The chassis followed Bugatti's established pattern: a stiff ladder frame with solid axles front and rear, semi-elliptic leaf springs at the front, and reversed quarter-elliptic springs at the rear. While this layout was conservative by the standards of the early 1930s, when independent front suspension was beginning to appear, it was engineered with a precision that gave the Type 55 handling characteristics far superior to most of its contemporaries.

The bodies fitted to Type 55 chassis represent some of the finest coachwork of the pre-war era. While several coachbuilders supplied bodies, the most iconic Type 55 wears the Jean Bugatti-designed roadster body, characterized by flowing fenders, a dramatically curved tail, and proportions that achieve a harmony rarely matched in automotive design. Jean Bugatti, Ettore's eldest son, was a gifted designer who created some of the most beautiful car bodies ever conceived before his tragic death in a testing accident in 1939 at the age of 30. His Type 55 roadster body is widely considered to be among the most beautiful automobile designs in history.

With only 38 Type 55 chassis produced, the car was rare even when new. The clientele was necessarily exclusive: wealthy enthusiasts who wanted the experience of a Grand Prix car refined for road use. In period, the Type 55 was recognized as one of the finest sporting cars available, capable of sustained high-speed touring and spirited driving on the twisting roads of the French countryside. Its supercharged engine gave it a significant performance advantage over most contemporaries, and the close-ratio gearbox allowed the driver to keep the engine in its power band through corners.

Surviving Type 55s are objects of intense collector desire. Auction results in recent years have placed the finest examples in the $5 million to $10 million range, with the Jean Bugatti-bodied roadsters commanding the highest premiums. The car represents a unique intersection of engineering, artistry, and scarcity that is almost impossible to replicate. Several have been displayed at the world's most prestigious concours d'elegance events, including Pebble Beach, Villa d'Este, and Chantilly, where they consistently earn top honors.

The Type 55 Super Sport encapsulates everything that makes pre-war Bugattis so revered: the racing pedigree, the mechanical artistry, the aesthetic beauty, and the sheer exclusivity. In an era when automobiles were still young enough to be both works of engineering and works of art, the Type 55 achieved a synthesis of form and function that remains a benchmark for automotive excellence.