Chassis Number: 44380
In the spring of 1966, the Bugatti Owners Club’s Bugantics published the following advertisement: “Type 44 for sale in Poland. Photo shows car number 44380 in tired original condition. It is for sale but only in exchange for a modern car, as this is the only way to get a car out of Poland. It belongs to Mr. P. Miroslav. Details from Godfrey Eaton.”
Dutch collector Guy Huet was interested and contacted Eaton. Huet lived in Brussels and worked for the American City Bank. The car’s actual owner was one Kazimierz Urban, who had a leather-goods store in Warsaw and owned several Mercedes 170 Vs. He was an acquaintance of the collector Tadeusz Tabencki, who negotiated the car’s sale. Thanks to a German friend, Huet bought an Opel Rekord for DM 3,400, which he shipped by train to Poland.
After some nine months without news of the Bugatti, Belgian customs notified Huet that a train from Poland had brought the Type 44 to Brussels. Together with his American Bugatti friend Steve Hamlin, who was living in Belgium, they took delivery of the car from the train. Surprised by the condition of the vehicle, the customs service did not ask for any import fees.
After a week’s work, the car was running and soon repainted in the original colors. At the time of purchase, the yellow paint was very pale, so a deeper shade of yellow was chosen. The Bugatti was then driven to Crosthwaite & Gardiner’s workshop in the U.K., where the engine was removed and overhauled. This work took almost two years. During this period, Huet fitted the car with the 3-liter engine of another Bugatti he owned, which he assembled with a Solex four-carburetor manifold.
The car, as rediscovered in Poland, had a completely original red leather interior, and all the seat leather, door interiors, carpets, wood and bodywork remain original, which is exceptional. Huet made no changes to the Bugatti, apart from fitting a large windscreen, adding a temperature gauge to the dashboard, refurbishing the radiator plumbing, and repainting the car. Huet, not knowing the coachbuilder Gangloff’s name for lack of information, affixed a “Bugatti coachwork” plate to the car, and Piet Blok, the Dutch restorer, changed the firewall.
The Type 44 has taken part in numerous rallies since 1969 and came out of restoration for the 40th anniversary of the Bugatti Owners Club at Prescott in June ’69. It took part in the commemorations of the Grand Prix de Lyon in 1974, 1994 and 2014; the Mont Blanc Rally in 1978; the Bugatti Centenary in Molsheim in 1981; and several international Bugatti rallies in Montreux until 2016.
The car presented for sale is a unique model. It is the only survivor of Gangloff’s first Sport models built on Bugatti 3-liter chassis in 1928–29 and is fitted with a Torpedo Sport body from May 1929. Since 1966 “44380” has belonged to the great Dutch Bugatti collector Guy Huet, who owned more than 25 Bugattis but always kept this one, which is undoubtedly the most desirable and original of the surviving 3-liter Sport models.
