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Armand Esders sold his car after some years. The roadster body was changed to a Coupe de Ville built by coachbilder Binder. This car came nearest to belong a royalty, the King of Rumania but in the meantime came the WWII. Now the car is full restaurated and I had the luck to see it in the Technik Museum Wienna. The car is simply fascinating, gracefull and majestic - while it is so great as a lorry ! The built of models was smooth. The photos taken in Wienna were a great help at the enterieur.

The third sold car went to Capitan C.W.Foster. He brought the car to England and ordered a body at coachbuilder Park Ward. The car got a body very similar to Rolls Royces of the time no surprise, Park Ward was the official coachbuilder of Rolls Royce. Interesting, the pattern of upholstery is the same as in the Napoleon Coupe but while in that it is mainly blue in Fosters Limousine mainly brown. Thanks my son I have photos from this car too. To build the model was rather similar to other ones but the partition between driver and passanger compartment was some challenge. It needed a lot of dry assembly befor gluing. And to find a method that the driver seat fits close to partition was an other case. Namely the seat is fastened to the below part of body and the partition in the upper part. The upholstery with decals needed a lot of repeating and time till the paterns fit to another half way. The experiences were good at the making of Napoleon Coupe and Binder Coupe.

Here is the drapery sample and two pictures of the original Napoleons interior in Mulhause. I used these pictures to the development of patern. You can copy a section of smaple and you can multiply it to need.

First of all - CONGRATULATION, CONGRATULATION !!!! The models are wonderfull made and I`m sure the following ones will be too. Your project to build the other Royales is a big one and I wish you all the necessary patience and perseverance. I know how great is this project - I`ve made all ever made 11 body variants of Royale but in only 1:75 scale. And it needed more years.(well, I built some other models in that period too) You can see some of this little models in this forum and shortly I shall continue to post the last ones.

A wonderfull model of one of mine favorit cars !!! Congratulation ! BTW which kit is it ? I sure would like to build one.

Wonderfull model - great job - a lot of work ! I like the wire wheels - how did you make tham ? Which scale is it ?

Many thanks for background story ! So little stories make the modeling even more interesting.

Beautifull built model ! I like Jaguar E-Type racers. Little question: the # 44 on the rear is "mirored". Was the decal wrong ?

I love Pink Pigs ! Your one is very cool and a very clean built. Before more years I made my pig too: a diecast toy Porsche in about 1:64. I made only new paint, decals and ready.

The fourth car was built without anyone who want to buy it. Ettore ordered a closed coupe body at the coachbuilder Kellner. The car was the winner of Most Expensiv Car of Show in London Motor Show 1932. Well for the price of Kellner Coach you would have been able to buy 3 Rolls Royce! It survived the WWII in a hidden garage behind a wall together with other two Royale on the estate of Family Bugatti. The gracefull car arrived the highest auctions price of Royales till now. The build of model was a routine soon. The all black enterieur don`t allow to see any details inside there is not very much even the dashboard is black painted. The only one to see is the knob on gear stick made of ivory of course on the original one.

The car is built not for sale but for the Family Bugatti. The style of car is Ettores prefered traditional coach-style with yelow black combination. Typical to the Royale cars that the daughter of Ettore was able to drive the car without any greater phisycal effort. The Berline de Voyage was an ever second car: the second that survived the WWII, the second Royale owned by Briggs Cunnings and arrived the second highest price of Royales on an auction 6.5 million USD I built the model with opened driver compartment too to show the details that ones remain rather hidden behind the closed windows. As I have no pictures with opened soft top I didn`t want to make an eventually total mistaken arrangement of the back part of body. (is there a frame for the doors, fastened or removable, is the window between driver and passanger compartment removable with its frame etc. are open questions)

Very beautiful model, perfect work János (greetings from Hungary)

It was the first sold Bugatti Royale. The roadster was designed by Jean Bugatti for Armand Esders a textile industrialist. As requested the car was built without headlights because Mr Esders never drived after sunset. But he got the headlights in a little mahagony case onto all possiblities. Later was the car sold and rebodied by coachbuilder Binder. Today existing a replica of the Esders Roadster, half way built from original Bugatti parts. A modelmaker friend of mine saw the growing fleet of Royales on the model exhibitions year by year and at least said good, good but open the doors! ( you have to know he was the one who infected me with the idea to open doors on 1:24 models) So I done my best with the doors altough they are not functioning. (there was an other modeler a profi on the exhibition who built a mail van in wild-west stile with functioning doors in 1:87 scale ! What a pity I couldn`t solve his secret since then.)

Edsel-Dan: Hi Daniel, why did you cut out the chassis section of the bottom plate ? I did the same on the completed body because I nedded access to the inside of body to make opening doors, etc.

Hi Lee, this scale goes back nearly a half century. I was an auto fan but that time was no Matchbox or similar available in Hungary. So I began to curve my auto models from wood. Later I was a draughtsman and there was used scale-rouler with more scales. As I used pins for the axels the 25 mm lenght of tham was perfect for the 1:75 models.

The damaged Weimann coupe was dismantled and only the chassis was saved. It was shortened 30 cm and Weimann built the wonderfull Napoleon Coupe body on it based on the design of Jean Bugatti. The Bugatti family used the car till 1963. I made the upholstery by self made decals. I could reproduce the pattern based on photos made by my son in the Musée National de l'Automobile in Mulhouse.

Very nice model. The lovering was absolutly necessary now it looks fine on the rood !

Hi Skip, the dimensions of a model: weelbase: prototype 61.0 mm (models shown soon) serie 59.2 mm (the coming ones) track: 22.3 mm I shall post at coming models some pictures in progress - but during modeling I had in mind more the next and the next phase as to make photos about all steps. So there are not very much.

Bugatti T 41 Royale Weimann Coupe #41100 1929 in 1:75 scale The fourth body on the prototype chassis was built by the famous coachbuilder Weimann. The car was painted black, the black and yellow combination turned out only on later figures. The car was used by the Bugatti family. After an abundant dinner Ettore and his doughter has an accident and the car was heavily damaged. I built the model with the black and yellow combination because I heard only later about the originaly made full black paintjob. Well that time I had no internet still.

Very nice built and with a nice color ! I`m "happy" to see the body assembly was a challenge not only for me. But what might be expected from a 50 years old kit - after 50 years we shall be bent a bit too. I built my one in the exhibitions color and got an additional portion of problems with opening the doors. Here it is:

Hi Scott, sorry to say but my 1:75 models are built all individual and are one offs not available kits. I developed and made everyting from the drawing the 4 wiev drawings to the ready model. Exeptions are only the vakumforming and photo etching. What I wrote about "series production" was meant the chassis and the parts of it. There was only 4 mm difference in lenght between prototype and serie ones. The body upper and lower part, the enterieur and dashboards are all different according the originals.

I beg your pardon Bill. I forgot the scale: it is 1:75 as at all of my Bugatti Royale posts in the last time. You kann check out in my members gallery all the other ones and the following ones in the comeing weeks.

The third body has no interesting story. It is truly specious but rather angular. It seemed nobody liked it. However Bugatti took contact to His Majesty Zogu king of Albania, His Majesty Carol king of Rumania, His Majesty Boris czar of Bulgaria among others. On the other hand no surprise that there was not very much interest to buy such an expensive car. One could bought 3 complete Rolls Royce for the price of a Royale chassis. And a body for them cost about the same summe again. Thanks the series production the build of model was smooth. I got only a little trouble with glasing. I used a liquid superglue which worked fine everywhere without the usually white fogging. But here in the narrow inside of body I got beautifull fogg on the windows. It needed a rather long polish.

Hi Brudda . . . pardon . . . Bruce, The model isn`t any kind of kit. It is 100% scratchbuilt. You can find some further details and story about the build of the models in my earlier posts about Chassis and Tourer and in the coming posts of the other body variants of Royales in the next time posted weekly. Hi Chris, yes it is in 1:75 scale. You can check out the proportion to a 1:24 model in my earlier post about Napolen Coupe built from an Italeri kit.

This was the first body built by Bugatti. As there was some interest shown by XIII. Alfons the king of Spain Bugatti built and introduced a realy royale body named Napoleon for him. But Alfons found it too angular and want a spaciouser body. At least he bought a Rolls Royce. That was cheaper too. Later was the car introduced to pope. Some are using the nickname Pope-car too. The car was renamed Fiacre when Weimann built the wonderfull body for the today known Napoleon Coupe. I exhibited my chassis and Tourer models on an Automodel Exhibition in Budapest. I met there the Harris twins who are one of the most illustrious model makers of Hungary and automuseums owners. They was so nice to allow me to search in the museums library. I found there a photo and side view of the Fiacre in the last minute. Namely the model was soon started but that based on a wrong picture. So I could modify it yet in time.