1939 jaguar need help deciding...

[Harry P.]

The chassis looks good so far!

[sjordan2]

Actually.... Bugatti blue is different from "French" blue. The French blue can be like any other famous color - eleventy-twelve different hues out there. Bugatti blue is the same shade as a Gauloise cigarette pack. The legend is that Mademoiselle Bugatti would walk out to the factory and pull out her pack of smokes and make sure the color was right on all the factory race cars. Bugatti blue is pretty consistent, all things considered. French blue is darker than Bugatti blue.

That's fascinating. I would assume, therefore, that the wide variations in existing vintage Bugattis probably have something to do with the restorations rather than the original colors, which is pretty much the way it goes with these things.

Here's another angle from www.type35.co.uk...

"What is Bugatti Blue?

I would like to start up a little debate regarding the correct Bugatti blue colour.As far as I can see, a number of colours have been used over the past 80 years, my particular quest is the correct colour for a 1925 T35. Well, the only actual Bugatti Blue colour code I have come across is the one used on the 100P aeroplane, developed by Dupont, their code is S55959-UM, and the name is, of course, "Bugatti Aircraft Blue". When it comes to the colours of the racing cars, there really isn't any one Bugatti Blue, as this colour evolved over time. It started out quite light, or pale, sometimes called "horizon blue". On photos of the first Type 35s at Lyon in 1924, the cars look almost white - while it became darker, and more purple, with time, to end up something like all the Bugatti racers in the Schlumpf collection.

You may have heard of the story of Mrs. Bugatti, who was supposedly in charge of the Bugatti Blue colour, using the blue of the packets of her French cigarettes Gauloises (she was in good company as Jean-Paul Sartre and Pablo Picasso were also fans).

I thought I would investigate this story and contacted the present owners of the Gauloises brand "Altadis SA". Their archive department was extremely helpful providing a picture of a 1925 version of the packet (colour match on the computer is not quite right, but is close and has been checked by a Kodak expert I know) as original. The colour is nice, but I think a bit strong when compared with the b/w photos of the era. "

[Modelmartin]

That's fascinating. I would assume, therefore, that the wide variations in existing vintage Bugattis probably have something to do with the restorations rather than the original colors, which is pretty much the way it goes with these things.[

You would be correct. The variations of what everyone believes to be Bugatti blue are probably closer to each other than than variations of Ferrari Red - chiarro rosso! That covers Orange to Maroon!

B&W photos are a nightmare trying to figure out colors. I have been surprised by the huge amount they can vary. Some colors looked dark and some lighter. I think B&W photo analysis is very unreliable. I have read that some Bugatti owners have found sections of original paint that were covered up by something and had that paint matched. At one point I mixed up my own batch of MY Bugatti blue which I am very pleased with. See my T59 in the Under Glass section.