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We all know the Bugatti name and we associate that to the hyper exotic luxury cars that have been produced in the last 10-15 years. But actually Ettore Bugatti Founded the high end car company back in 1909 and has built some of the most iconic cars ever made, both now and then. SOme of the more popular cars from the early years were the Type 55, Type 35 Grand Prix cars, and the Type 41 “Royale”. If you somehow got your hands on any one of these cars made from the early ’20s though the early ’40s, you may as well be sitting on a gold mine because they are worth a fortune.
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One car made by the famous French car manufacturer, who’s founder was born in Italy, that you may not of heard about also happens to be one of the more unique cars they made. I’m talking about the 1923 Type 32 “Tank” that was used to compete in the French Grand Prix Tours. Only four examples were made and it featured a one of a kind streamline design that closely resembled the shape of an airplane wing. The fully enclosed bodywork helped keep the car more aerodynamic with intentions of it cutting through the air and therefore making it faster. At least that was the theory, there was one significant problem. Even though they lowered the car as much as possible, the wing shape still wanted to create lift once you reached high speeds.
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Even with the car fighting against them almost the entire time, the Tank still managed to pull of third place in the 1923 French Grand Prix standings. One of the reasons for that was the inline 8 cylinder engine that produced an estimated 90hp. That engine also utilized roller bearing technology to improve the reliability which was very important in those times. The short wheelbase allowed the car to be quite nimble in the corners. Overall the success of the Type 32 Tank was mediocre at best, but the Bugatti engineers did learn a lot from the car. Later when they released the Type 57G in 1936 that was also considered a tank bodied race car it was much more successful.
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