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.
The largest engine Bugatti put into a production car, the Type 50B, is under the hood of this Type 55 Roadster. It is the same 3.7-liter power machine used in the Type 44 Grand Prix racing car. Jean Bugatti, son of founder Ettore, supervised the styling and engineering.
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.
