PAST IMPERFECT:Bugatti's Veyron is a fitting homage to the French motor racing engineer and driver of the same name, writes BOB MONTGOMERY
YOU’VE SEEN the pictures, read the reports and marvelled at the engineering but what do you know about the driver after whom the Bugatti Veyron is named? My guess is that most motoring enthusiasts would answer with a blank stare, yet Pierre Veyron deserves to be remembered.
This French driver was born in 1903 and began racing in 1930 when he finished 2nd in the 1,500cc class of the Touring Grand Prix of Oran driving an EHP.
He had not intended to become a racing driver and was studying as an engineer when his friend Albert Divo, persuaded him to give racing a try.
The following year he acquired a Bugatti Type 37A and won the 1,500cc class at the Geneva Grand Prix as well as placing second in the Grands Prix of Tunis and Comminges. Those results established him as a top driver and he continued to achieve success over the next four years, first with his Bugatti and then with an 8-cylinder Maserati.
In 1932, Ettore Bugati’s son Jean offered him a job at the Bugatti factory allowing him to combine racing and engineering and the following year, driving one of the latest Bugatti Type 51As, he won at Avus, Lwow in Poland and at Albi. As a result, he was invited to join the official Bugatti team for the 1934 season.
Now a Bugatti ‘works’ driver, Veyron continued his winning ways, taking victories at Avus and Albi as well as 2nd place in the Prix de Berne. In 1935 he seemed unstoppable, winning the Grands Prix of Lorraine and Albi for the third year in succession and was 2nd in the Grands Prix des Frontières and in the Czechoslovak Grand Prix as well as 3rd at Dieppe.
In 1936 most of the big French races were for Sports Cars and again Veyron excelled, with the result that thereafter he concentrated on sportscar racing and on the Le Mans 24 Hour event in particular. The highlight of his racing career came with a victory at record speed in the 1939 Le Mans race co-driven by fellow Frenchman Jean Pierre Wimille. This win was to be the highlight of Veyron’s racing career as although he continued to race after the war, he failed to finish the Le Mans race on every other occasion he competed there.
During World War II, in company with many other Bugatti co-workers, Veyron joined the French Resistance against the German occupation of France. The group of which he was a member was led by the race drivers Robert Benoist and Grover ‘Williams’, both of whom were captured and eventually executed by the Nazis in concentration camps. After the liberation of France, Veyron was awarded the Cross of the French Legion of Honour for his achievements during the occupation.
Veyron continued to race at Le Mans until 1953 but his attention was more and more taken up with the oil-drilling technology company he had founded. Pierre Veyron, race driver and war hero, died in the small French town of Eze situated between Nice and Monte Carlo in 1970.
By then, he had been forgotten by the world of motor racing which had been such a large part of his life. How appropriate that this talented engineer and race driver should now be remembered by the technological marvel that is the Bugatti Veyron.
In last week’s edtion, we featured an image of the Sinclair C5. The person driving it was not Sir Clive Sinclair as indicated in the caption.