Pur Sang
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but Pur Sang doesn’t really imitate—it recreates.
Merriam-Webster definition: recreate: to give new life or freshness. Just like the Fab Faux recreates the Beatles and the New York Philharmonic recreates Mozart, it’s as close as you can get to the real thing without being the real thing.
For those who don’t have limitless deep pockets, it’s a way to experience a machine from the past that would normally be out of their reach. That’s not to say a Pur Sang creation is a bargain, but compared to the originals they are based on, it’s not too bad.
30 years ago Jorge Anadon started Pur Sang almost by accident. The Type 35 Bugatti was always a great love for him. So while having an original car taken apart for a restoration he was performing, he took measurements, made tooling, and took in the essence of the Bugatti. From that, he was able to recreate his own machine.
30 years on, Pur Sang now has 100 artisans building replicas of many of the great Pre-War supercars.
A 35B can be built in six weeks start to finish; the cadence of the shop keeps things moving along. Yet absolutely no short cuts are taken. All techniques and materials used in a Pur Sang are identical to those used in Molsheim in the 20’s. The Alloy wheels are cast using the same method, the aluminum skin is formed using wooden bucks and English wheels. Everything is done in-house. The foundry is there; the machine shop is there. It’s an automotive microcosm in Argentina.
There is nothing modern or out of place to say this car wasn’t built 90 years ago instead of being finished a week ago. (You can add unobtrusive directional signals if you want.) I would use hand signals, as the general public will be too blown away by this alien creature to notice small blinking lights.
Climbing behind the wheel is like going back in time; you should be seeing everything in black and white, with a sepia tone. You’re looking at an engine turned dash with just the gages you need, plus the inclusion of a Roman numeral clock. Copper lines snake through the tight cockpit, bringing fluids to all the proper places. Your shoes better be narrow if you are going to be on good terms with the pedals, because there is no extra space down there. The space is so much at a premium that the hand brake and shift lever are outboard to the driver’s right.
When you fire the engine up, the sound of mechanical mayhem is second to none. On the road, the screaming engine and the whine of the straight-cut gears surround you with a perfect symphony of performance. But you can’t just listen to the music, you have to be aware and deal with everything going on around you. You’re out in the wind, holding onto the wood-rimmed steering wheel for dear life—but what a life!.
The clutch is very light and either on or off, the brakes amazingly efficient. They’re part of a single casting with the wheel: the wheel itself helps to dissipate heat… and the throttle… the throttle… well, the more you press down on it, the more noise and fun you’re going to have, no two ways about it.
Look up visceral in the dictionary; there ought to be a machine like this, giving a proper illustration of the word.
The Pur Sang 35B takes you by the throat and shows you a time in the past not many have experienced. A time when you had to have real guts and other attachments to be a Grand Prix driver. Even on country roads at semi-legal speeds, you can start to get the idea of what Dreyfus, Chiron and Varzi felt like behind the wheel.
My thanks to Charles Spiegal for letting me look into, and feel, a wild past.
Comments
Post a Comment