1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Normally there is every year a weekend meeting organized by the Enthusiasts Bugatti Alsace (EBA) in Molsheim but 2009 was a special year for the Bugattisti as Bugatti is celebrating its centenary. This was the reason why the EBA and the Bugatti Club France joint their forces to organize an 8-day meeting.

The first part of the meeting (11.09-16.09.2009) organized by the EBA was dedicated to the history of the Company and its founder Ettore Bugatti in the Molsheim region. The second part (16.09- 20.09) by the Bugatti Club France was a tour from the Alsace to Paris with visits at Moet&Chandon  and a final exhibition of the cars on the Champs Elysées.

We had the opportunity to visit the first part of the event before heading to Goodwood.

The meeting started on Saturday with the visit of the 2 company in Molsheim carrying the Bugatti-Name. In the morning the participants had the opportunity to visit Messier Bugatti, the company founded by Ettore and Georges Messier 100 years ago which still is a strong supplier of aviation parts.

After the lunch the cars were driven to Bugatti SAS, the subsidiary company of the Volkswagen group. The factory is in direct neighbourhood of the Villa Saint Jean that was restored a few years ago and now serves for representation of the new company. The cars were parked in the garden of the villa for a small concours with judges from the international press (Mick Walsh from Classic and Sports Car and Malte Jürgens from the German Motor Klassik just to name a few), Bugatti-Experts and Achim Anscheidt (Head of the Bugatti Design).

Unfortunately the concours was not open to the public but reserved for so called VIPs and prospective clients leaving many of the far travelled Bugattisti standing outside the fence.
Things where even worse as some bushes were placed to hide the society from prying eyes.

On this day the Volkswagen group missed an opportunity to present themselves as the new keeper of the rich heritage of the company and one might become the impression that the Bugatti- brand is just a marketing tool to reach a clientele that the VW- name can´t. The keen ear not often heard the name Bugatti outside the fence that day but more often “the company that builds the Veyron”. Especially from many of the French fans of the marque as it still is not easy for them that “their” company is now owned by Germans.

It also was no surprise that the cars from the Autostadt Wolfsburg were not seen outside the park the following days whereas the cars of the Schlumpf Collection were present at the parade and even at the race track on Tuesday.

The Sunday was the day of Molsheim. In the morning the cars were parked in front of the mint for breakfast and already hundreds of people were there to get a detailed view of the cars.
After a visit at the family grave of the Bugattis the cars were back in the afternoon for a parade through the old town of Molsheim. The streets were lined by thousands of people making this parade a huge fair. It seems that the organizers were surprised by the throng of people and they became afraid that something might happen so they just send off a few cars every now and then. But the more they had to wait the more undisciplined the crowd became and they passed the closed road every few meters. At the end the parade took a full 3 hours.

After the parade the cars were parked in front of the Cathédrale des Jesuites as part of a huge city festival with music and beer tents.
The highlight of the day was the presentation of some selected cars on a stage in front of the illuminated cathedral with an impressive firework at the final.

On Monday the cars drove to Strasbourg were the owners visited the European parliament. The cars were parked in front of the opera but it seems that this was not advertised in the city as there were just a few people passing by during the day. In the evening the convoy headed to Mulhouse where the cars were parked in the Schlumpf Museum over night.

Tuesday morning the cars were escorted by the police to the market place before leaving Mulhouse to the Ecomusée in Ungersheim. The Ecomusée shows the life in Alsace in the past with many ancient houses dismantled in the region and rebuild in the museum. This was a perfect location for the cars and the Ecomusée is worth a visit even without the Bugattis standing there. The crews had an extensive guided tour and lunch in the museum before leaving to the race track Anneau de Rhin to play with their toys for the first time this week.

At Anneau de Rhin even several cars of the Schlumpf Collection appeared to do some demonstration laps including the Royale and a T252 on it first outing for years. After the museum cars the participants had the opportunity to do several laps and they enjoyed them to the fullest. Some of them even continued to lap the circuit when it was open to modern cars again and showed some of the Porsche drivers how fast a Bugatti GP car still is after 80 years.

The last day of the first stage was even the first of the second and so there were some new cars seen on Wednesday on their way through the Vosges. After a break on the Markstein the crews had to fight their way through heavy fog with sights of less than 20 Meters before reaching the final of the first leg on the Col de la Schlucht.

When we look back on these days we see a totally different event compared to the Bugatti Tour in Maremma in may (we reported earlier this year). Whereas the international Bugatti meeting was a rally with about 200 km per day this event was more a meet and greet with supporting programme. For those who knew what to expect it was a meeting with several highlights (Molsheim, Ecomusee and Anneau de Rhin) and a few lengths (Strasbourg), but for the visitors there where many great cars to see.

Text and images Peter Singhof >>>


Bugatti Centenary Molsheim 2009