The Bugatti Type 41, better known as the Royale, is a large luxury car built from 1927 to 1933 with a 4.3 m (169.3 in) wheelbase and 6.4 m (21 ft) overall length. It weighs approximately 3,175 kg (7,000 lb) and uses a 12.763 litre (778 cu in) straight-eight engine. For comparison, against the modern Rolls-Royce Phantom (produced from 2003 onward), the Royale is about 20% longer, and more than 25% heavier. This makes the Royale one of the largest cars in the world.
Ettore Bugatti planned to build twenty-five of these cars and sell them to royalty as the most luxurious car ever, but even European royalty were not buying such things during the Great Depression, and Bugatti was able to sell only three of the seven made (six still exist, one destroyed in wreck).
Crafted by Ettore Bugatti, the Type 41 is said to have come about because he took exception to the comments of an English lady who compared his cars unfavourably with those of Rolls-Royce.
The engine build for the Royale had a displacement of 12.7 litres. The engine was built around a single huge block, and at approx. 1.4 m (4.6 ft) long x 1.1 m (3.6 ft) high, is one of the largest automobile engines ever made, producing 205–224 kW (275–300 hp). Its eight cylinders, bored to 125 mm (4.9 in) and with a stroke length of 130 mm (5.1 in), each displaced more than the entire engine of the contemporary Type 40 touring car. It had 3 valves per cylinder (two inlet:one exhaust) driven by a centrally positioned single overhead camshaft. Three bearings and only a single custom carburettor was needed. The engine was based on an aero-engine design that had been designed for the French Air Ministry, but never produced in that configuration.
The engine block and cylinder head were cast in one unit. Grinding of the engine valves was a regular maintenance requirement, and removing the engine valves for grinding required removing and disassembling the large cast iron engine.
The chassis was understandably substantial, with a conventional semi-elliptic leaf spring suspension arrangement at the front. At the rear the forward-facing Bugatti quarter-elliptics were supplemented by a second set facing to the rear.
Strangely, for the modern day observer, the aluminium clutch box was attached to the chassis, not to the engine, and the gear box, also aluminium, was attached to the rear axle, so was part of the unsprung mass of the suspension. The clutch and gearbox were placed at odd locations to reduce noise and increase comfort, a difficult problem in those days. The transmission was mounted at the rear to offset the weight of the engine.
Massive brake shoes were mechanically operated via cable controls: the brakes were effective but without servo-assistance required significant muscle power from the driver. The car's light alloy "Roue Royale" wheels measured 610 millimetres (24 in) in diameter and were cast in one piece with the brake drums.
Reflecting some tradition-based fashions of the time, the driver was confronted by a series of knobs of whalebone, while the steering wheel was covered with walnut.
A road test performed in 1926 by W. F. Bradley at the request of Ettore Bugatti for the Autocar magazine proved how exquisite chassis construction allowed very good and balanced handling at speed, similar to smaller Bugatti sports cars, despite the car's weight and size.
All Royales were individually bodied. The radiator cap was a posed elephant, a sculpture by Ettore's brother Rembrandt Bugatti.
In 1928, Ettore Bugatti asserted that "this year King Alfonso of Spain will receive his Royale", but the Spanish king was deposed without taking delivery of a Royale, and the first of the cars to find a customer was not delivered until 1932. The Royale with a basic chassis price of $30,000, was launched just as the world economy began to deteriorate into the 1930s Great Depression. Six Royales were built between 1929 and 1933, with just three sold to external customers. Intended for royalty, none was eventually sold to any royals, and Bugatti even refused to sell one to King Zog of Albania, claiming that "the man's table manners are beyond belief!"
Six of seven production Royales still exist, as the prototype was destroyed in an accident in 1931, and each has a different body, some having been rebodied several times.
To utilize the remaining 23 engines after the final Royale was built, Bugatti built a railcar powered by either two or four of the eight-cylinder units. Seventy-nine were built for the French National Railway SNCF, using a further 186 engines, the last of them remaining in regular use until 1956 or 1958 (sources differ). The railcar turned the Royale project from an economic failure into a commercial success for Bugatti. The engines were derated to produce only about 200 hp, but even in this form they provided excellent performance. One of the railcars took a world average speed record of 122 mph (196 km/h) for 43.9 miles (70.7 km).
Media related to Bugatti railcar at Wikimedia Commons
In light of the rarity of the Type 41 and its associated price, it is unsurprising that some replicas have been made.
The Schlumpf brothers so liked the original Dr Armand Esders coupe body on chassis 41111, using original Bugatti parts they had a replica made of the car. It now resides with the two originals they purchased at the Musée National de l'Automobile de Mulhouse.
The late Tom Wheatcroft commissioned Ashton Keynes Vintage Restorations to build an exact replica of Bugatti's personal car, the Coupe Napoleon (chassis number 41100), for his Donington Grand Prix Collection in England. It has since been sold and left the collection. So good was the replica, that when the Kellner car needed a replacement piston, its then Japanese owners commissioned South Cerney Engineering, part of AKVR, to provide a replacement.
On May 24, 2008, Prince Joachim of Denmark on the day of his wedding to Princess Marie (formerly Marie Cavallier) had Wheatcroft's replica waiting outside Møgeltønder Church to drive the newly married couple to Schackenborg Castle.
The much smaller Panther De Ville (produced between 1974 and 1985) consciously resembled the Type 41.
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