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Hillsborough Concours d'Elegance: Bugatti bounty
Carolyn Jones, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, August 22, 2011
A Bugatti doesn't quite hum. It doesn't purr. It sounds more like a raspy growl - the sound Prince Rainier might have made when out of Champagne and Brie.
"It makes all the right sounds. Some people call it watch-like, or snarly," said David Wallace of Phil Reilly & Co. in Corte Madera, one of the few Bugatti mechanics in the United States.
The public will get a chance to hear - and see - the rare French sports car Aug. 28 at the Hillsborough Concours d'Elegance, the annual Peninsula car show. This year's show will feature one of the largest collections of Bugattis ever assembled this side of the Atlantic.
"There just aren't that many Bugattis in existence. But we saw that as a challenge," said show chair Rob Fisher. "They're very rare, but they're also beautiful."
Bugattis are among the world's fastest, most expensive and most meticulously engineered cars. The newest model can rip down the Autobahn at more than 200 mph and costs about $2 million. Despite the 100-year history of the company, fewer than 2,000 exist.
Leo Keoshian of Palo Alto's 1920 Brescia, one of the world's oldest Bugattis, will be at the show. The body is made of thin, light aluminum to give it increased speed. It has no seat belts, no headlights, no speedometer, no turn signals, no tachometer and no windshield. Starting it is a multistep process that involves hand cranks and unbuckling the leather straps holding down the hood.
But the little black sports car is zippier than any Honda. Keoshian - and Wallace, his mechanic - swear it can hit 80 mph. A ride in Keoshian's Bugatti feels like a cross between a roller coaster and a mountain bike careening wildly downhill.
"It's like a four-wheeled motorcycle, but it's more than that," Keoshian said. "You can feel the road, every bump. I guess it's a little dangerous."
Keoshian, a retired hand surgeon from Stanford Medical Center, bought the Bugatti 12 years ago from a collector in Japan. He's long been interested in cars, dating from his childhood on a Central Valley farm when he tinkered with tractors and old jalopies.
But the Bugatti has a romantic, glamorous quality other old cars lack, he said. For Keoshian, Bugattis conjure the Roaring Twenties, of starlets and royals dashing through the south of France in the world's most elegant, exclusive automobile.
Needless to say, Bugattis crash a lot. It was a Bugatti that Isadora Duncan was riding in 1927 when her silk scarf caught in the wheel and killed her. In 1939, Jean Bugatti, son of company founder Ettore Bugatti, died while test-driving a Bugatti near the factory in Molsheim, France.
So many have crashed, actually, that of the 7,500 Bugattis manufactured between 1914 and 1950, only about 1,000 remain.
Keoshian's car crashed, too. The front was smashed in France sometime before World War II, allowing a U.S. serviceman to buy it cheap during the war. The soldier shipped it home to Ohio where it sat in his garage for years. If it still ran, it didn't run often, Keoshian said.
The car finally ended up with a dealer in Santa Barbara, who eventually sold it to a Japanese collector. When Keoshian purchased it, he set about meticulously restoring the car to its original glory, with help from Wallace.
"They're very strange cars to work on - very delicate, very temperamental but amazingly durable," said Wallace, adding that, at any given time, his shop has two to six Bugattis undergoing repairs.
And the repairs aren't easy. All the parts, even the nuts and bolts, are unique to Bugattis and must be custom-made. A new water pump, for example, must be created from a cast sent from England, can take a week to make and costs $3,000, he said. A new water pump on a Toyota, by comparison, takes an hour to install and costs $150.
But no one buys a Bugatti because it's cheap or efficient.
"If you want the very best, you have Bugatti make you a car," Wallace said. "The analogy is great art. If you really like Picasso and you have the money, you buy a Picasso."
Hillsborough Concours d'Elegance: Fundraiser for the San Francisco 49ers Foundation, autism and education programs. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Aug. 28. Crystal Springs Golf Course, Burlingame. Tickets: $25. www.hillsboroughconcours.org.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...BAFV1KLD24.DTL
Carolyn Jones, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, August 22, 2011
A Bugatti doesn't quite hum. It doesn't purr. It sounds more like a raspy growl - the sound Prince Rainier might have made when out of Champagne and Brie.
"It makes all the right sounds. Some people call it watch-like, or snarly," said David Wallace of Phil Reilly & Co. in Corte Madera, one of the few Bugatti mechanics in the United States.
The public will get a chance to hear - and see - the rare French sports car Aug. 28 at the Hillsborough Concours d'Elegance, the annual Peninsula car show. This year's show will feature one of the largest collections of Bugattis ever assembled this side of the Atlantic.
"There just aren't that many Bugattis in existence. But we saw that as a challenge," said show chair Rob Fisher. "They're very rare, but they're also beautiful."
Bugattis are among the world's fastest, most expensive and most meticulously engineered cars. The newest model can rip down the Autobahn at more than 200 mph and costs about $2 million. Despite the 100-year history of the company, fewer than 2,000 exist.
Leo Keoshian of Palo Alto's 1920 Brescia, one of the world's oldest Bugattis, will be at the show. The body is made of thin, light aluminum to give it increased speed. It has no seat belts, no headlights, no speedometer, no turn signals, no tachometer and no windshield. Starting it is a multistep process that involves hand cranks and unbuckling the leather straps holding down the hood.
But the little black sports car is zippier than any Honda. Keoshian - and Wallace, his mechanic - swear it can hit 80 mph. A ride in Keoshian's Bugatti feels like a cross between a roller coaster and a mountain bike careening wildly downhill.
"It's like a four-wheeled motorcycle, but it's more than that," Keoshian said. "You can feel the road, every bump. I guess it's a little dangerous."
Keoshian, a retired hand surgeon from Stanford Medical Center, bought the Bugatti 12 years ago from a collector in Japan. He's long been interested in cars, dating from his childhood on a Central Valley farm when he tinkered with tractors and old jalopies.
But the Bugatti has a romantic, glamorous quality other old cars lack, he said. For Keoshian, Bugattis conjure the Roaring Twenties, of starlets and royals dashing through the south of France in the world's most elegant, exclusive automobile.
Needless to say, Bugattis crash a lot. It was a Bugatti that Isadora Duncan was riding in 1927 when her silk scarf caught in the wheel and killed her. In 1939, Jean Bugatti, son of company founder Ettore Bugatti, died while test-driving a Bugatti near the factory in Molsheim, France.
So many have crashed, actually, that of the 7,500 Bugattis manufactured between 1914 and 1950, only about 1,000 remain.
Keoshian's car crashed, too. The front was smashed in France sometime before World War II, allowing a U.S. serviceman to buy it cheap during the war. The soldier shipped it home to Ohio where it sat in his garage for years. If it still ran, it didn't run often, Keoshian said.
The car finally ended up with a dealer in Santa Barbara, who eventually sold it to a Japanese collector. When Keoshian purchased it, he set about meticulously restoring the car to its original glory, with help from Wallace.
"They're very strange cars to work on - very delicate, very temperamental but amazingly durable," said Wallace, adding that, at any given time, his shop has two to six Bugattis undergoing repairs.
And the repairs aren't easy. All the parts, even the nuts and bolts, are unique to Bugattis and must be custom-made. A new water pump, for example, must be created from a cast sent from England, can take a week to make and costs $3,000, he said. A new water pump on a Toyota, by comparison, takes an hour to install and costs $150.
But no one buys a Bugatti because it's cheap or efficient.
"If you want the very best, you have Bugatti make you a car," Wallace said. "The analogy is great art. If you really like Picasso and you have the money, you buy a Picasso."
Hillsborough Concours d'Elegance: Fundraiser for the San Francisco 49ers Foundation, autism and education programs. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Aug. 28. Crystal Springs Golf Course, Burlingame. Tickets: $25. www.hillsboroughconcours.org.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...BAFV1KLD24.DTL