This charming little vehicle is one of the few survivors worldwide of a very early Ettore Bugatti design, which had been created in 1911 as the Bugatti Type 19 and licensed to Peugeot two years later. The model, powered by a tiny water-cooled four-cylinder engine, sold a remarkable 3,000 copies between 1912 and 1914, and it thus became the largest-selling Bugatti-designed automobile ever, as well as the inspiration for other European manufacturers to begin building tiny cars. The result was the famous “cyclecar” trend that continued throughout the 1910s.
Story by RM Sotheby’s
