Bugatti Type 35 Grand Prix, Argentina #5

CMC dresses its Argentine Type 35 in pale sky blue and white, the colours of the national flag, with the number 5 picked out in red. The car beneath is the Bugatti that defined Grand Prix racing in the mid-1920s. It was unveiled at the Grand Prix de Lyon in August 1924, and over the following years Molsheim built it in a family of versions, from the original unsupercharged 2-litre car to the supercharged 35C and the 2.3-litre 35B, several hundred cars in all. It raced across Europe in the hands of works drivers and private entrants alike, which is why it suits a series built around the racing colours of different nations so naturally. The shape never changed: the horseshoe radiator, the long louvred bonnet, the narrow cockpit and the pointed tail.

On this car the white runs over the bonnet and nose and the pale blue over the cockpit and tail, with a grey-blue chassis below. The bonnet lifts to show the straight-eight with its brass carburettors and copper lines, and the spare is carried on the flank in leather straps. Eight-spoke alloy wheels, an engine-turned dashboard with clock and gauges, a cord-bound wheel and a brown leather seat complete it. CMC builds it at 1:18 from more than 930 parts, in a limited edition of 500.