Editor: Jaap Horst
On occasion of the "Festival Bugatti 2002" I have met John Barton and he showed me his car, a type 49 with a roadster body. He told me, that the first body which was on the chassis 49.428 was done by the German coachbuilder Neuss. I told him, that I remember to have a picture of the car and so I looked through my drawers for Neuss bodies and found some of them.
Above 49.428 with John showing his back.
In the book by C.Benter and H.Schrader " German Automobile Coachwork" I found the following notes about Neuss:
"Joseph Neuss of Aachen opened his coachbuilding firm in 1857 in Berlin. In 1889 his son took over the business and built the first houseboat in Germany, among other things. They only turned over to automobiles with the third owner, Karls Trutz of Coburg, producing special bodies on Maybach and Mercedes chassis for prominent customers. Trutz was a memeber of the Reich's auto industry society and board member of the AVUS company. When he retired from the firm in 1933 for reason of age the operation was taken over by Erdmann&Rossi. Until then the Neuss showrooms had also held the Berlin dealership for Bugatti and several particular beautifull cars were mounted on Molsheim chassis including one delivered to the Swedish royal house. Erdmann&Rossi carried the Neuss name as a subtitel on their car plaque until 1935."
In "carnet No 3" of Mr.Pracht chassis 49.428 was delivered 4.4.32 to Bucar with engine No 335. There was no direct delivery of a type 49, 43,or 50 to Neuss or Erdmann&Rossi, they all have been delivered via Bucar and it is not possible to identify the Neuss bodies in the factory reports.
Type 43 by Neuss:
The following chassis have been delivered to Bucar: 43.257/258/282/295/298/303
Type 49 by Neuss
I only found pictures of one type 49 with a Neuss body, so it might be 49.428
John has more details about the story of the car and I hope he will write some details.
Type 50 with body by Neuss:
The following chassis No have been delivered to Bucar: 50.137/138/135/126/125/122/121
That is all I know about Bugatti & Neuss, but it is not an easy corner of the Bugatti history to verify the German cars. If anybody has more informations about this subject please contact me and the "Bugatti friends"