These two cars are being dialed in for the Historic Races at Laguna Seca in August of '05. The Bugatti is a 1927 Type 35C. It has a straight 8 engine with supercharger. I got a ride in this car on the street a few days prior to these pictures.

When I found out they were taking them to the track, I took some time off to go to the test and tune session to see and feel these amazing cars. I also ran my Miata on the track with them so I was able to follow them around and see and hear them at work. Sure beat going to work that morning.

This car is a '30s Talbot Lago Formula 1 racer. It has a straight six engine of 4.5 liters, non-supercharged and three of the biggest SU carbs I've ever seen. It has about 230 HP and makes wonderful sounds when opened up.

These pictures were taken at Continental Divide Raceway in Mead, Colorado on August 9, 2005.

Another Visit to the Candy Store (Feb 9, 2006)

There were three Voisin automobiles in residence today, a roadster, coupe and a very curious sedan. Unfortunately, the rather sinister looking sedan was in a dark part of the shop and the picture isn't very good.

This is a 1920 (possibly 1922, I am not sure which) Bugatti Brescia, one of the earliest Bugattis surviving. Note the beautiful copper fenders, body work and gas tank. They showed me where some cracks had been repaired in the fenders. There was no visible evidence that the metal have ever been less than perfect. This car just had an engine rebuild and they started it up while we were there. It ran like the proverbial sewing machine.

This is a new engine being built up for the Delahaye V-12 race car shown at the top of page 5. There were problems with the original magnesium block so they had three new blocks cast and machined out of aluminum. I lifted the magnesium block, it was surprisingly light, 65 lb vs. 115 lb for the aluminum block. There was evidence of welding in the water jackets under the cylinder sleeves, just how does one go about welding magnesium???

This engine has three camshafts, one in the valley between the cylinder banks for the intake valves and one on each side of the block for the exhaust valves.

I believe this to be a Delage with a supercharged straight six engine. The supercharger is actually behind the engine under the cowl.

Detail view of the cam drive mechanism for a twin cam straight eight Bugatti engine, either a Type 51 or Type 57. This engine is a direct reverse engineered Miller engine. The story goes that Bugatti needed a competetive engine, looked around and found the American Miller engine produced the most horsepower at the time and offered to trade Miller a couple of Bugatti cars for an engine or two, then set about makeing it better.