Readers are talking about The Phantom Bugatti!

5.0 out of 5 stars - Great Story

It really flows! A man is left a rural farm. He finds a rare Bugatti, loses his wife to jealousy, and finds a new life.

Reading "THE PHANTOM BUGATTI" is not unlike a ride in one of our beloved Bugattis -- often a bit of an adventure! You'll find it a fun ride coupled with a bit of history, mystery, and even a tug at your heartstrings.

EVELYN WALBURN, Classic car collector

The Phantom Bugatti is a mystery suspense infused with historical background and a second-chance, small-town romance. Jack, a middle-aged graphic designer in Cleveland, has just inherited his grandfather's small Indiana farm, but there is more here than he knew. Hidden beneath the barn floor is a million-dollar treasure: a genuine vintage Bugatti roadster built for beauty and speed.

But not everyone is as thrilled as Jack. His wife sees only dollar signs in the property and car and hopes to force the sale of both. A friend offering to help with restoration at the isolated farm could be looking for a way to steal it.

Jack will have to decide who can be trusted and who cannot. Most of all, he must solve the mystery of how the Phantom Bugatti legend came about and why the car was hidden away on his grandfather's farm in the first place.

The story came to me over twenty years ago while working on the exhibition "Bugatti" at the Cleveland Museum of Art. The beauty and grace of the nine cars displayed, all built in Molsheim, France, astonished me. I imagined what would happen if I discovered one hidden on my Grandfather's farm.

Under the hood of the car in this story is the largest engine Bugatti put into a production car, the Type 50B. The same 3.7-liter power machine drove their Type 44 Grand Prix racing car. The styling and engineering by Jean Bugatti, son of founder Ettore, put other models to shame.

A subplot takes the reader to the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum where he finds striking similarities in one of the cars.

I'm a proud member of the American Bugatti Club and the UK's Bugatti Trust, whose staff graciously helped me research this book and the upcoming historical fiction of the Bugatti story.

The photo below is a Bugatti Type 55 Roadster

FOR MEDIA RELEASE

CONTACT: Will Truesdell, wptruesdell@gmail.com, (309-714-1600)

BLENDED GENRE NOVEL INSPIRED BY CLEVELAND ART EXHIBITION

(Bloomington, IL) Author W.P. Truesdell announces the release of his second novel, THE PHANTOM BUGATTI (274 pages), on Amazon.com in e-book, soft and hardback covers.

Set in Cleveland and rural Indiana in the Y2K era, world-wary Jack Reinhart has just inherited his grandfather’s forgotten farm property. Visiting it for the first time since his youth, Jack discovers under the barn a rare French-built Bugatti car from 1931.

Against his wife Sally's initial desire, Jack decides to restore the antique and seeks out advice from an early automobile expert who gives him the confidence to pursue it. Without any experience, Jack enlists help from a mechanical high school buddy, Flahaven. They start making routine visits to the farm and soon engage with locals at a nearby tavern, including two attractive sisters who operate a cafe.

Over time, Jack finds a kindred spirit in one of them, Rosie, who helps him piece together the puzzle of his Grandfather's Bugatti. At the same time, he loses trust in Flahaven, whose motives he begins questioning. The restoration is further complicated by Jack's lack of funds and marital issues.

According to Truesdell, “My novel imagines an average guy's journey of self-discovery through the process of restoring a family heirloom and his own life goals. Elements of legacy, family secrets, love, and betrayal come together as Jack uncovers truths about his world. For auto buffs, an intriguing link is drawn between Europe’s auto entrepreneur Ettore Bugatti and Auburn Automobile Company’s legendary E.L. Cord, who transformed the fledgling Indiana carmaker."

William (Prenevost) Truesdell recently turned to writing novels after a forty-year career in arts management, his last position heading the Illinois Shakespeare Festival. He attributes His writing experience includes playwriting, poetry, and short stories. The Phantom Bugatti to his experience working on The Cleveland Museum of Art’s groundbreaking “Bugatti” exhibition in 1999. The Phantom Bugatti was originally part of a more ambitious historical fiction about the extraordinary Bugatti family of artists, Beauty and Speed, planned for a separate release in 2025.

His first novel, For Love of Art and Ericka, is also set in Cleveland, imagining a farcical “arts makeover” of a sports talk radio station. He resides with his family in central Illinois.

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