Today Jerry and I went on a tour of the Bugatti restoration shop in Berthoud. This was my third time to the shop. Of course, it’s not the shop that’s the attraction, but the cars. Today there were a handful of Bugattis there, along with a fairly modern Ferrari and a couple of Lotus. The Bugattis are always interesting, but the draw today was the Delahaye Type 145.

Emile Delahaye started building cars in Tours, France in 1894. In 1896 he entered two cars in the Paris-Marseille-Paris race, finishing 8th and averaging 12.5 miles per hour. These nineteenth century cars weren’t very powerful – one model had a 2.2 liter engine pumping out four and a half horsepower.

The state of the art had improved somewhat by 1937, when this car was built. In those days, the racing scene was dominated by government sponsored Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union. In an effort to get French auto makers to develop race cars capable of beating the Nazis, the leftist alliance Front populaire (which included, among others, the French Communist Party and Radical and Socialist Party) sponsored the ‘Prix du Million’.

The race was held at the notorious Autodrome de Montlhéry, site of Alberto Ascari’s death a dozen years before. Actually a time trial, each car was required to drive 16 laps (120 miles) and average 91 mph from a standing start. The prize was a million francs, which was a bit over $40,000 at the time but would be close to a million US dollars today.

Delahaye’s answer was the Type 145, chassis 48771 specifically. The car had a 4.5 liter V-12 engine pumping out 220 horsepower. To make the engine as light as possible, the cylinder heads were made of an aluminum alloy and the block was cast in a magnesium alloy. Capable of 160mph, this car took the win driven by Rene Dreyfus.

In addition to winning that race, this car also finished 1st in 1938 Grand Prix de Cork Ireland and Grand Prix dePau, France, as well as 4th at the 1938 Mille Miglia.

This car is worth in the neighborhood of $20 million.

Thanks much to Victor for sharing his shop with us and to Skip for organizing the event.