Restoring the crème de la crème
Team rebuilds one-of-a kind car near Boulder
Daily Camera, Boulder Colorado
By Julie Marshall
November 6, 2003

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toing the ce de la creme
David Chamberlain stood on the flawless green fairway that rises above the jutted cliffs of Pebble Beach's famed hole 18, but golf was the last thing on his mind.

Jay Leno stood a few feet away. Ralph Lauren was there, too. But Chamberlain was far more interested in hundreds of classic cars posing on the lawn by the sea, resembling contestants in a beauty contest.

This summer, the 1935 Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic, a rare classic that Chamberlain helped restore, won the creme de la creme title of antique car shows — Best in Show at the 2003 Pebble Beach Concours D'Elegance.

"This Atlantic was my first major job and now it's the world's No. 1 car," Chamberlain says with a twinkle in his eye. One year ago, the furniture maker had never even heard of a Bugatti. But as a self-described motorhead, he was more than happy to help disassemble the French-made touring car — down to its last nut and bolt — and restore it to appear much like when it first left the factory.

Beginning in 1909 and well through the 1930s, Ettore Bugatti conceived, designed and built thousands of cars — both racing and luxury models — at his factory in Molsheim in the Alsace region of France. The automobiles were hand-crafted; no two were exactly alike. Ettore, and later his son Jean, elevated the crude endeavor of manufacturing cars to a work of art, auto historians say.

Jean Ettore bestowed the Atlantic coupe with an exotic, serpentine feature not seen before — a riveted seam running down the center of two conjoined aluminum panels that make the body of the car. The coupe also features "suicide doors" that open from front to back.

But there were only three Atlantic coupes ever made. The story goes that one was destroyed after colliding with a train; another belongs to Ralph Lauren. The specimen that won at Pebble Beach was originally built for Lord Victor Rothschild, but today belongs to Peter Williamson of New Hampshire, who hired a team of automaniacs who all came to Colorado to rebuild a piece of history.

Most of the work was done at High Mountain Classics, a shop that in recent years moved from Boulder to Berthoud. The goal was always to bring the car back to 1939, the year a supercharger was added to the 3.3 liter engine, allowing the street car to reach 130 mph. Hydraulic brakes and opening side windows were added that same year, says Stranberg, who has spent 30 years restoring classics.

"I feel that in the world of cars, this is probably one of 10 of the most important cars," Stranberg says, noting that it beat out the Rolls Royces, Packards and Dusenbergs at Pebble Beach in mid-August. "Even people who don't know about cars can see it's truly an exceptional piece of artwork and automotive history ... restoring it was like restoring a Van Gogh."

The restoration crew hailed from across the country. Metalworker Scott Sargent moved his entire family from Vermont to Berthoud for nearly a year to get the job done. The details were painstaking — from lowering headlights to expanding the rear windows, and rebuilding the steering wheel and dash in rare wood.

The two-year long journey to research and rebuild the Atlantic coupe took Stranberg and Sargent to Europe. The original factory is no longer in operation, but the offices are used by today's Bugatti builders — a division of Volkswagen, which makes high-end versions of the original Italian-inspired and French-made cars.

Through good fortune, Sargent was on a Bugatti-club boat party along the River Seine, when he bumped into a "young kid" who happens to hold the key to Bugatti archives. He confirmed the mystery of what color to paint the car.

"I couldn't believe it, he had a book that described it," Sargent says.

Back in the Colorado shop, Glenn Watt of Colour Restoration in Longmont spent every waking hour for seven months sanding, priming and finally painting the car a metallic silver-blue.

"The car came in pieces, so we did each piece separately," he says.

Mike Lemire, who owns an upholstery shop in Vermont, shipped his tools in a crate and came to Colorado for six weeks to do his part. It was another treasure hunt to figure out what color to cover the interior, he says.

"We found a piece of the original color and grain of leather underneath the panel of the driver's side door," he says. It was royal blue.

Then came the artistic touch of Chamberlain, a woodworker who lives up Four Mile Canyon Drive. In his home woodshop, Chamberlain crafted a new wood dash, door trim and trunk lids for the Atlantic coupe.

Before carving a single piece, however, Chamberlain flew to Essex, Mass., to take a gander at Ralph Lauren's Bugatti. He traveled to Kittery, Maine, to buy French walnut wood from the only source in America, a rifle manufacturer.

The steering wheel was the most difficult — and most rewarding — part of the job, he says. Seamlessly fitting wood to metal in four pieces and making it snug as a glove took a good 30 hours.

"I don't like to brag, but this wheel turned out so beautiful," Chamberlain says. "I put on 20 coats of finish, it just shined like glass."

But did he expect the car to win the world-class title? "There I was at Pebble Beach surrounded by the most beautiful cars I've ever seen in my life. I didn't think we had a chance," Chamberlain says.

"My wife and I took some stage seats and watched these cars parade by one by one ... eventually it got down to Best in Show. The announcer was talking about the No. 1 car and all of a sudden the Atlantic came over the top of the hill and my wife was screaming. The fireworks went off. It was quite a scene."

Contact Julie Marshall at (303) 473-1305 or marshallj@dailycamera.com.