Ettore's horses

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The link between motoring and aviation is as old as, well, motoring and aviation themselves, perhaps only preceded by the more obvious connection of motor-cars with horses.

Ettore Bugatti had an interest in aircraft design and aviation but must have favoured horses over flying machines, famously marketing his cars as Le Pur Sang des Automobiles. He owned a stable yard in Molsheim and had a great collection of carriages tucked away there, too, or so author Andres Furger informs us with his book Horseman Bugatti, published just a few years ago. In it he writes: “He [Bugatti, that is – Ed.] drove single, pair and team. What his daughter and close friends always suspected has proven to be true: Ettore Bugatti almost preferred his horses to his pur sang on four wheels. When he left Alsace before the Second World War to live near Paris, he took one Royale and a few automobiles with him but almost all of his carriage collection.”

The 1913 picture seen here, and sent to us recently, is a new one to us. While man and stallion are the subject here, there’s a Bugatti car in the background also. Do you know which one?

(Words Jeroen Booij, Picture via Colin Palmer)

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