Hoffman

Nice work, Rodney! ?

Magnificent work! Thank you for the excellent photographs and sharing with all of us.

Outstanding!!!

Thank you, Sir!

Thank you, Phillipe! I think you have an advantage over me- you can go visit Mulhouse and see the full size Bugatti in person. ?

Thank you, Rusty! ?

Thank you, Gary, glad you liked it. I've long admired your work as well!

Reworked Franklin Mint model with Heller Delahaye 135 wheels and Jada tires to better match the actual full size car it represents. Suspension lowered, spare tire cover installed instead of exposed wire wheel. More details posted in "under glass", before I realized there is in fact still a Diecast forum.

Very, very nice, Gary!

So what do you think? Lots of little changes added up to more work than I thought. I like it much better since the corrections were made. I feel like now it really is #57383, only 24 times smaller, and much, MUCH less expensive.

Body Trim Atalante #57383 has had several owners over the years and they each made minor changes to the trim. The car originally came from the factory with the prototypical “grasshopper leg” front bumpers. The car was raced in hill climbs and club events, at which point it donned racing numbers ‘61’ and ‘64’, and the bumpers were ditched. When returned to street duty rather British looking vertical blades were fitted for a time, then back to no bumpers at all, which is as it is today. The car had been licensed and registered with number NE1990 for some period of time, and NE2542 as well. When shown at events today it has no license plates. On display at the museum, some photos show it with no plates, and some with a placard affixed to the front which says, “MULHOUSE”, and below that, “Musée National de l'Automobile – Collection Schlumpf”. For my model, I elected to recreate an NE1990 plate for the rear and the Mulhouse placard for the front. The car has had a spare chrome wire wheel and tire mounted on the rear deck in the past, but more recently has a black painted spare cover in place. The FM model has the wire wheel but I chose to replicate the covered spare. I found that a Johan ’31 Cadillac spare cover is the right size and look, combined with an Italeri Rolls Royce hub cap, modified slightly and with a knockoff added in the center. And lastly, the tail light lenses were too red. They’re pretty dark on the big car. A quick touch up with Testors Ruby Red Metallic cured that.

Interior The seats were cast in a slightly different color from the door panels; a little too pink. I painted them with Tamiya Desert Yellow and redid the silver painted seat frames with Molotow. They’re chrome on the full size Bugatti.

Chassis and Engine The bottom of the dry-sump oil tank proudly proclaims, “FRANKLIN MINT PRECISION MODELS”, and the gas tank reads “1936 BUGATTI TYPE 57SC”………or at least they used to. The chassis itself was repainted gloss black after all the suspension mods were sorted out. I cleaned up the casting flash on the exhaust system, drilled out the tips, repainted the pipes silver, and gave them a very light wash of black to bring out some of the detail. I repainted the block, cylinder head, oil pan and transmission in combinations of Testors Steel, Argent Silver, and Aluminum. The cam cases and supercharger are covered in matte aluminum Bare Metal Foil. That was a bit awkward and time consuming, sort of like gift wrapping an elephant. The intake is Molotow chrome to mimic polished aluminum. The exhaust manifold was repainted gray/black and the ancillary bits, starter / generator / water pump were given more correct colors and finishes. I gave the oil pan a wash of brown/black between the fins. I’ve read that Bugatti engines have tight tolerances, few gaskets, but do tend to leak oil. The engine compartment itself really didn’t need any changes. The one glaring point is the piano hinge in the center of the hood, visible when opened. I painted that black to match the underside of the hood.

Suspension The model sat too high and the front wheels needed to come forward a bit. I lowered the front 4 millimeters by cutting slots in the springs and dropping the axle down into the slots instead of sitting on top of the springs. If you look at a full size Bugatti, this is one of the unique design features of the cars. The parallel leaf springs actually pass through square openings in the front axle. As I lowered it, I also re-positioned the wheels forward and bent the axle ends to give the wheels some positive camber, as Bugatti’s typically have. The king pins were Phillips head screws. I replaced those with lengths of brass rod and gave the axle a shiny coat of Molotow chrome. The steering needed some attention as well. The plastic tie rod and drag link were too large in diameter, out of scale. The drag link interfered with the springs after the axle was lowered. So, I modified the design of the drag link to clear the springs and made a replacement link and tie rod from smaller diameter aluminum tubing and straight pins. The rear suspension was lowered 3.5 millimeters by rotating the forward spring mounts upward. There was some cutting and grinding involved and removal of the axle attachment points on the frame. That was necessary to raise the axle relative to the frame, thus lowering the ride height.

Wheels and Tires Most Bugatti Type 57S and SC cars were fitted as standard with 18" wheels and 550x18 tires. This one has 17” wheels and unique bias ply tires with sort of a pie-crust perimeter. They’re different. Most restored Bugatti’s today are running Blockleys or Michellins. The Mint did model the wheels in a smaller diameter like the prototype, but to my eye they went too far. The chrome wire wheels look really good, but they’re a little too small. The rather generic tires are slightly too tall, don’t look so great and really detract from the model. The solution I came up with is Heller wheels from the Delahaye Type 135 kit, adapted to pie-crust bias ply tires from a Jada diecast. The open area between the spokes is greater and allows you to see more of the brake drums, like the full size car. To model the drums, I came up with some fender washers with the right OD and ID. On the FM model, the wheel knockoffs are stationary; the wheels roll but the knockoffs stay put. That really bugged me! The rear axle was a large, solid steel rod. I replaced that with brass tubing and ran a separate axle through it to enable the rear wheels to roll, and the knockoffs to come along for the ride. Up front, the spindles were drilled for aluminum tubing axles. I used cut-down straight pins through the wheels and into the tubing to secure the wheels; all four roll now.

Franklin Mint created a very nice model of this specific car. It took me a bit of research to determine exactly which original the Mint had modeled. I was pleased to find the original, but as I took in the beauty of the car and it’s fine details, I began to notice things that varied slightly with the model. I made it my goal to address some of the differences and make the model more like the full size automobile.

This 1936 Bugatti Type 57SC Atalante, serial #57383, is a long term member of the incredible Bugatti collection at the Musée National de l'Automobile in Mulhouse, France. This was formerly the Schlumpf collection. Every Bugatti is special, hand made, with each one slightly different from the next. This one wears beautiful coupe coachwork by Kong.

Very well done, Jay! Now, build another one, but lower. ?

Dennis, I really like what you've done with this kit, all the improvements you've made, and sticking to your build theme. Have you decided on the slicks, whether to paint the inserts black or white? Very cool build, looking forward to the finished piece. Check out Dave Darby's T too. It's cool! Better hurry, he's got a 20 year head start on you, and he's ahead at this point! ?

Looking good, Karl!

Dave, I love it! Excellent work. Now bring it on home! Looking forward to the completed model. ?

Thanks, Guys! Here's some close up shots.

One thing I noticed while pouring over photos is the valve cover gaskets. From the right angle, they're pretty noticeable on the full size engines. I think they're cork. I thought it would be fun to replicate that. I did it using thin paper gasket material from Napa Auto Parts. The thickness was about right for the scale model and the color was right. For the chrome pipes you see running from the top of the intake manifolds to the back of then engine, I used thin stainless safety wire, bent and routed appropriately. The 'T' fitting behind the cylinder heads is bits of brass tubing that I soldered together.

The chassis is Italeri, shortened from a scale 149" to 143", matching the car I'm replicating. The front axle is from a Franklin Mint '32 Cadillac. The engine is the Italeri V-16, with some modifications. The valve covers are from the Monogram '32 Cadillac. I used the intake and exhaust manifolds and carburetors as well. They're slightly larger than the Italeri pieces and look more authentic. I made the distributor from several sizes of aluminum tubing, and yes, there are sixteen individual plug wires in the bundle. The two stray wires go to the twin ignition coils that are mounted in the top of the radiator. Next set of pictures are full size '33 Cadillac for reference.