Type 57 engine

Car : Bugatti 50 T
Year : 1932
Engine : 8 cylinders in line
Bore and stroke : 86×107 mm
Cylinder capacity : 4972 cc
Gears : 3 forward
Brake horse power :200
Maximum speed : 105 mph
Wheelbase : 10 ft 2 ins (3.10 m)
Suspension : front: semi-elliptic leaf- springs ;
rear : upside down ¼ elliptic leaf- springs

At the age of 28, with the help of the Alsatian banker de Vizcaya (two of whose sons were later to become Bugatti drivers), Ettore founded his own factory at Molsheim near Strasbourg. The first cars to emerge from his factory were the 13, the 15 and the 17. These all had 4-cylinder 1327 cc engines and the differences between them were confined to the wheelbase. The mono-bloc engine had a single overhead camshaft, two valves per cylinder, magneto ignition, and oil bathed (wet) multi-plate clutch, a 4-speed transmission and the hand brake acted on the rear wheels. The total production of the type 12 and its various derivatives up to the modified type Brescia was 2,400 – 2,500 cars, of which about 2,000 had 16 valves.
Between 1912 and 1913 five or six chassis were prepared at Molsheim intended for use on racing cars. These were the first large engined cars. The engine had a capacity of 5027 cc, three main bearings and three valves per cylinder (two inlet and one exhaust), a pattern that was to become standard on Bugatti products. The overhead camshaft was driven by vertical shaft and this also drove the magneto and the water pump. The wheelbase of the chassis was 8 feet 4 inches (2.84 m) and its width (track) was 4 feet 1 inch (1.24 m). It had chain drive, a method that had by then been discarded by virtually every manufacturer and which suggests that Ettore Bugatti had designed this car much earlier. The brake pedal acted on the transmission and the hand brake acted on the rear drums. Of particular interest was the 5-litre pear-shaped radiator which it adopted a year in advance of the small capacity machines. One of these machines was given the nickname ‘Black Bess’. Officially it was clled Roland Garros after a French aviator who had ordered a machine with a 500 cc engine from Bugatti.