Bugatti Grand Prix Radiator, Vintage Reproduction

No Bugatti needs a badge to be recognised, and the reason is the radiator. The horseshoe shape, flat at the foot and rounded over the top with the red oval set at its crown, had become the face of the marque by the 1920s, and it carried across Ettore Bugatti's touring cars and his Grand Prix cars alike. Even the small arch cut into the bottom of the core belongs to the outline: it is there to clear the starting handle. Few makers have ever owned a single shape so completely.

This is a vintage reproduction of a Bugatti Grand Prix radiator, made in France, and it stands upright on its own. A brass plaque reads Touraine Radiateurs, No. 1004. The shell is a dull silver metal, worn and marked from handling, wrapped around a black honeycomb core. A filler neck rises from the top under a knurled cap, and just below it is the red enamel Bugatti oval with the EB monogram and its border of dots. At the base the shell turns in around the starting handle notch, and dark riveted brackets on each side let the piece stand as an object. A fragment of an old paper label still clings to one edge of the shell. Only the radiator is included.