You are definitely not looking at a Bugatti Type 51 Race Car, but at a pretty good looking fake replica built in the 1980s by Keith Butti, a London based engineer. The vehicle surfaced after the last owner, Alan Riley, died in 2010. Parked inside a shed for over ten years, it was found and recognized as not being an original model valued at £2 million.
Riley purchased the car in 1987, thinking it to be an original. He took it to all Bugatti meets in the 1980s and 90s and though he never raced it he always projected it as an original. The only two parts original Bugatti are the fuel tank and the rear cross member.
The vehicle will now go under the hammer on September 26th at Brightwells Leominster, Herefordshire UK. The auctioneers expect to fetch a six figure summ of about £100,000 when it is put up for auction.
Is it a fake or replica? Fake suggests intent to deceive, which I doubt. Isn’t this the vehicle that actually sold for £270,000?