France · Packard-bodied running prototype · spring 1927

Bugatti Type 41 Royale prototype

Before the Royale wore a royal coachbuilt body, Bugatti tested its giant machinery beneath a seven-seat Packard touring body.

Luxury engineering prototypes

Exterior · Photo shows representative reconstruction. Commons explicitly calls this a recreation of Type 41-100a's Packard torpedo form and dates the form 1926. It must not be presented as the original spring-1927 prototype or chassis 41100 survivor.
1927 Bugatti Type 41 Royale prototype cover · Palauenc05 · CC BY-SA 4.0

A place in vehicle history

More than a set of wheels.

Bugatti began Type 41 design work in 1925 and had a running prototype on the road by spring 1927. For the first body, the team reused a seven-passenger phaeton from a 143-inch-wheelbase Packard. The huge experimental car kept evolving—brakes, springs, wheels, axle details and bodies all changed—until the prototype chassis was destroyed in a 1931 crash.

Look a little closer.

In 1927 the Packard-bodied prototype carried registration 3293-J4 and was photographed with both Ettore and Jean Bugatti at the wheel.

Photos show an example of the model or generation. The pictured vehicle’s year, equipment, or modifications can differ from the specification described here.

Prototype, not today's Coupé Napoléon

The Bugatti Trust found that the surviving Coupé Napoléon uses a later production frame with none of the prototype's special front-spring mounting. Its plate reads simply 100. That evidence breaks the often-repeated story that today's car is the same unchanged frame as the 1927 Packard-bodied prototype.

Source: Bugatti Trust Newsletter 35 · Type 41 Prototype Part 2 ↗

A nearly fifteen-litre claim under review

A 1926 Autocar report quoted 125 × 150 mm and 14,726 cc, and Bugatti's current history still calls the prototype 14.7 litres. Bugatti Trust researchers found no 150 mm-stroke crankshaft among more than 2,000 factory drawings, so the famous number remains a period-reported specification rather than a fully resolved surviving-part measurement.

Source: Bugatti Trust Newsletter 33 · Some Notes on the Type 41 Prototype ↗

Where these facts come from

Selected facts checked for this edition. Some source pages link to broader model families. Last reviewed October 1, 2026.

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