Melbourne Desk Two Bugatti Type 51As
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| Two Bugatti Type 51As |
| Melbourne Desk | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Written by Martin Stubbs | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Thursday, 01 July 2010 01:34 | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Following the publication on Motormarques , (click here to see see link) page 24 of the Dacre Stubbs Collection which featured the restoration of the Dale's Type 51A Bugatti, I was contacted by Bob King, Registrar of Bugatti Club Australia & author of 'Bugattis in Australasia'.
He very kindly was able to offer much more information on the car and to provide a context to those photos taken before the restoration was begun. These addition photos of the two 51As supplied by Bob were acquired from someone named Fullford.
"Dear Martin, In regard to your late father's wonderful photos of the Bugatti, recently posted, I have photographic evidence that the car also ran at Rob Roy hillclimb, driven by Lyndon Duckett, who was the driver at Bathurst. The original Type 39A (1500cc, single overhead camshaft, 8 cylinder supercharged) frame was numbered 4824, but was re-numbered by the factory as 51142 on conversion to Type 51A (1500cc, twin overhead camshafts, 8 cylinder supercharged) by the factory.
I will send separately photographs of the two Dale Type 51A's; very similar cars with wire wheels and outside exhausts; the second car, also a converted Type 35 is chassis number 4847.
The similarity of the two cars certainly confused the Vic Police - see story, p 211, my book".
"A possibly apocryphal story is told of the two Type 51As when they were in Melbourne in the hands of the Dale brothers and "Puss" Catlin. At that time they were both blue, both fitted with wire wheels and external exhausts and, to the untrained observer, would have appeared virtually identical.
One Sunday, both cars were visiting Earl Davey-Milne's property in Toorak. During the course of the visit, Puss Catlin did some rapid motoring around the fine roads of Melbourne's Boulevard but unfortunately attracted unfavourable attention from the Victorian Police. No doubt their Ford V8 had considerable difficulty in keeping up with the 51A which was spurred home to Davey-Milne's, where it was driven rapidly down the driveway and around the back of the house, out of sight.
The steaming Ford duly arrived, its driver delighted by the sight of a blue Bugatti sitting outside the house. The policeman greeted the group of Bugattistes with the question, "Who owns the Bugatti?" "I do", said Peter Dale. We can leave it to your imagination to make up the rest of the conversation between the two. Apparently it was only when the policeman felt the cold radiator on Dale's Bugatti that he was prepared to believe that the car had not moved for several hours."
If anyone has any additional material in relation to these cars and Fullford, please contact MartinStubbs at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or Bob King, Registrar of Bugatti Club Australia, at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Peter Menere working on the 51A - chassis 35.4847 - at the Australian GrandPrix, Albert Park.
He co-drove the car with the owner "Puss" Catlin.
Martin Stubbs
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| Last Updated on Sunday, 06 March 2011 02:44 |
