Bugatti Radiator Desk Clock, Copper

Bugatti's radiator began as an egg. Ettore Bugatti's father Carlo, a furniture designer, held the oval to be the ideal shape, and from 1912 the Type 13 was built only with an oval radiator. Then, with the Type 35 racing car of 1924, the bottom edge was made straight, for aerodynamics and to place the front axle better, and the radiator took on the look of a horseshoe. Bugatti's own designers say the likeness came from that change rather than from Ettore's horses, though he did breed them and rode them around the Molsheim works. The red oval badge with white letters sat on his radiators from the first Type 13 at the end of 1909.

This desk clock is an original from the 1920s and takes the horseshoe shape. A copper shell with a polished rim carries a knurled brass filler cap on top and a small red Bugatti oval below it. Set into the front is a round clock in a silvered bezel, held by three screws and stamped Patent beside a Swiss cross. The cream dial has bold black Arabic numerals, a small seconds dial above the six and the words 8 Days and Swiss Made, with a knurled setting button at the nine o'clock side of the bezel. A brass half-dome sits at the foot of the shell, whose flanged feet are screwed to a wooden plinth. The movement is mechanical and Swiss, running about eight days on a full winding, and the wooden back and base are stamped EB, for Ettore Bugatti.