More than 50 years ago the first International Bugatti Meeting was
held at the Scottish border in Great Britain and since that first
meeting every year another national club has the privilege to
organize a meeting for the Bugattisti. One year after the jubilee in
Scottland the torch was passed to the German Bugatti Club were
the preparation were already well under way when the entrants
were said good bye in the highlands after a memorable week in
2013. Although it was a great challenge to succeed these
organizers of the 2014 meeting prepared a superb program that
does not need to be afraid of any comparison with previous
editions.
Base of this year’s meeting was the lovely city of Bamberg in
Upper Franconia, one of the best preserved and largest historic
town centres in Germany. Based on the fortification and the
Archdiocese, Bamberg can look back on a history of more than
1000 years and unlike many other historic town centres it survived
the second world war without major damage and today features
several landmarks including the Old Town Hall at the Regnitz, the
Dome with the New Residence as see of the Prince-Bishop and
the monastery Sankt Michael overlooking the town from the
Michelsberg. With millions of international visitors per year the
World Cultural Heritage is well worth a trip even without such an
important classic car meeting but the presence of several dozen
Bugatti certainly did add to the presence of the town during this
sunny early summer week. On the other side Bamberg and its
surrounding scenery was the prefect ambience for the meeting.
On Tuesday 3rd of June the first cars arrived early in the morning
at the nearby trailer parking to be unloaded from their journey from
France, Italy, Netherland, Swiss and many other countries, after
the check in at the hotel and collection of the paperwork for the
next day’s most of the participants took their time to visit the
town, others enjoyed the sunny afternoon on the terrace in front of
the hotel to welcome old friends. But not all were able to enjoy
the afternoon as the service crew of accompanying Bugatti
restorer Malcolm Gentry already had to work on several cars and
not few had the impression that some of the owners prefer having
the car serviced on the arriving day for free than spending some
money upfront...
The Hotel Residenzschloß was the ideal choice for this week as
it featured the ambience of a representative late 18th century
building with a spacious underground parking and all that within
walking distance of the historic sites. The entry list featured about
66 Bugatti and their crews, unfortunately a separate meeting of
Grand Prix Bugatti just the week before prevented a significant
number of owners to come by as this entry list was about 1/3
short of the major meetings in previous years. On the other side
this line-up featured more touring cars, cabriolets and saloons
compared to the small racers than previous years showing that
Bugatti built a larger quantity of road cars than some might
expect when looking at other classic car events. Several
4-cylinder Type 40 and 8-cylinder Type 44 were joined by the big
Type 46, the first 8-cylinder Type 30, the sports car cousin of the
grand prix cars Type 43, a rare Type 55 and several Type 57, the
last and most popular model before the war giving a nice
retrospective of the work of Ettore Bugatti.
Wednesday was the first driving day of the meeting with a 200 km
tour westwards into the hilly region of Bamberg. After the drive
through several small towns into the national park Steigerwald
passing typical lush grassland and flowery meadows the Bugatti
arrived at the Cistercian abbey of Ebrach where the interested
could visit the monastery complex or take a coffee at the
surrounding taverns. The first conspicuousness of this week was
the amount of spectators at the first stop compared to the privacy
of the Scottish edition. Due to the German bureaucracy every
stop and many city passings had to be approved by the
authorities and certainly these information were made available in
local newspapers by the responsible persons to generate some
public interest. When the cars arrived at Ebrach they were
expected by a lot of people taking the opportunity to look at some
old cars. Some might think that the owners were worried about
leaving their car on a parking lot surrounded by people but in
reality most of them were happy to answer the numerous
questions of the bystanders, most of them on their first approach
with vintage sports cars.
After the coffee stop another 60 km led through the hills on lovely
country roads to the lunch stop at Sulzfeld am Main, a medievally
fortification dating back to 915 ad. The cars entered through the
town gate into the narrow streets normally restricted to cars.
Again the cars were surrounded by many spectators making it a
challenge to get some nice pictures of the cars in the historic
atmosphere. After a rustic lunch buffet the cars were heading
back to Bamberg when passing Prichsenstadt with a marvellous
main street and a lot of half-timbered houses. After entering
through the western gate the cars were welcomed by the local
authorities and the community and the drivers took the chance for
an unscheduled coffee stop. In the evening the entrants were
transferred by bus to the nearby Castle Seehof that should be
passed several times in the following days to end the first day in
the Orangery.
The second day again started with great sunshine and the first
part of the tour led through the Franconian Switzerland to the
coffee stop at the historic town hall square of Hollfeld. Again the
cars were welcomed by a lot of people and when several school
classes of small children took the scene not few had to smile and
compare the ambience with the Mille Miglia and Italian fanatic
about cars. A small tour then led to Bayreuth, the city famous for
the Richard-Wagner-Spiele where the cars were lined up at the
gardens of the Eremitage of the old castle for the lunch stop. This
was the most interesting arrangement of the cars during the week
as the line-up in the alley and at the grotto allowed superb
pictures of the cars in a most suitable setting. Although this was
the only place that was almost private beside a few regular
visitors of the gardens again the local volunteer fire brigade was
on hand to look after the cars when the participants enjoyed their
lunch. It was very obvious that many local volunteers helped the
organizers at every stop giving the owners a very secure feeling
about their parked cars, on the other side the organizers were
keen in leaving a positive image of the old cars wherever they
stopped with boards under the cars taking every drop of oil to
leave the place as clean as it was found when arriving. A nice
surprise was the visit of the recently reconstructed Bugatti T41
Royale Prototype with its Packard body as seen new on that
chassis. The prototype was rebodied several times before a
completely new chassis was built in 1931 with the Coupé
Napoleon Body that today could be seen today in the National
Motor Museum in Mulhouse, the famous Schlumpf Collection.
With just six chassis built the Royale is one of the most famous
cars in the world and just like the Esders Roadster the Packard
bodied car was reconstructed to show how these cars looked
during their early life when they had several rebodies.
The Royale was again seen in the evening in front of the hotel
when the interested participants were shown a film on the history
of this reconstruction before the evening ended with a barbecue, a
nice souvenir of this evening was a black apron with the meetings
logo.
Friday led through the Main valley past a few remaining rape
fields, nice half-timbered houses and through forest roads to
finally arrive for the first stop at the most famous Franconian
churches, Vierzehnheiligen. The Basilica built after the plans of
baroque architect Balthasar Neumann attracts about ½ million
visitors a year and is one of the most important baroque churches
of its era. The participants had the chance to visit the Basilika
and attending a mass, unfortunately the towers of the church are
currently covered with scaffolding due to renovation work,
something the Basilika had in common with the lunch stop
location of this day, the Ehrenburg in Coburg. After passing
Kloster Banz on its way to Coburg the cars were lined up around
the circus in front of the castle and in the yard between the wings.
The Ehrenburg was originally built in the 16. century and rebuilt
several times in different styles since then, the name (Castle of
Honour) goes back to the fact that it was constructed entirely by
paid craftsmen, very uncommon in a time when socage was
normal. Today the Ehrenburg serves as museum and archive of
the regional library, again those interested got a guided tour
before the lunch was served in a nearby restaurant. Due to the
high temperatures of the day the first arrivals did look for a place
in the shadow of the main building to keep the interior of the car
at reasonable temperatures. As the circus was just opened for
the Bugatti and normally closed by bollards some of the impatient
drivers were driving around looking for an exit well before the
timetable intended their departure, for some reason it were the
same drivers running well in front of the field every day. After all
the cars returned to Bamberg as intended the evening was spent
visiting the old town of Bamberg in a guided tour providing all
interesting information on the various landmarks.
Saturday was the last day of the meeting with another 180 km
tour. First in the morning the Castle Seehof was passed, place of
the first dinner of the week, then some road works had to be
passed. Why is the passing of road works interesting some might
say but the story behind this passing illustrates the support of the
authorities of the region for the meeting. When the drive through
the small village was planned well in advance nobody did know
that all the streets will be open for channel digging in this week
and when the major became aware of the clash of the tour and
the construction work a plan was made which streets had to be
ready to get the cars through the town including the usage of
some country lanes and several volunteers spent their Saturday
morning to guide the cars on their intended way. Although the
major worried about stone chips on the expensive cars this was
actually their natural surrounding back in the 1930s rather than
the perfect surface of some of the new roads. After this
intermezzo the journey led past some typical Bavarian churches
and rocks including the Castle Wiesentfels built on one of them
before arriving at Castle Thurnau. Thurnau was built between the
13th and the 19th century in different phases and when the last
count died ending the long family history the castle was not in
best shape, since the 1970s the castle is undergoing a slow but
loving restoration. The cars were parked in the inner yard and the
drivers could get an idea of the progress both in the church and
the attached buildings. Unfortunately the extensive weapon
collection was sold off by one of the last owners, just a few old
black and white images showed the guns and muzzleloaders
once stored in the main hall.
The last stop of the week was in Neuenmarkt at the open air
steam locomotive museum were the cars were parked opposite
the huge trains which were common sight on the rails in the glory
days of the Bugatti marque. In the afternoon the last episode of
the week led back to Bamberg but not all of the cars were seen
on the intended route as some might have taken the direct way
back to prepare themselves for the conclusive gala evening before
the participants left in all directions the next day after a very
entertaining week.
The International Bugatti Meeting is always a great event and one
of the attractions is the diversity between the different editions.
When comparing this edition with the last one they had not much
in common besides the cars and the cordiality of the Bugatti
family. Whenever one had a problem with his car (what happens
from time to time with vintage sports cars) most of the cars
coming by stopped immediately to offer a helping hand so most of
the smaller problems could be solved with pooled forces long
before the service arrived (that was naturally driving at the back of
the field).
The landscape from Franconia with its charming hilly country
roads was a great contrast to the harsh moor and the lochs of the
Scottish Highlands of last year giving the entrants new
experiences every year. The IBM 2014 was a very well organized
and very pleasant tour in a very relaxed atmosphere upon
like-minded, what one can expect more, the sunny weather
certainly did his part for the success. Without doubt most of the
entrants will be back next year when the IBM will be back in the
country of the marques origin when the French Bugatti Club takes
over, the Provence will be more than suitable for sure.
Report & Images ...Peter Singhof
www.ClassicCarPhotography.de
Chassis numbers compiled with the help of the Bugatti Register
www.BugattiRegister.com
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