The Bucciali was a French

automobile A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with Wheel, wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, Car seat, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport private transport#Personal transport, pe ...

manufactured from 1922 until 1933. Built by the brothers Angelo and Paul-Albert Bucciali, the company's first vehicle, produced at

Courbevoie Courbevoie () is a commune located in the Hauts-de-Seine Department of the Île-de-France region of France. It is in the suburbs of the city of Paris, from the center of Paris. The centre of Courbevoie is situated from the city limits of Par ...

, was a

cyclecar A cyclecar was a type of small, lightweight and inexpensive car manufactured in Europe and the United States between 1910 and the early 1920s. The purpose of cyclecars was to fill a gap in the market between the motorcycle and the car. A key c ...

, sold under the name Buc. Initial offerings were powered by 1,340 cc two-cylinder

two-stroke engine A two-stroke (or two-stroke cycle) engine is a type of internal combustion engine that completes a power cycle with two strokes (up and down movements) of the piston during one power cycle, this power cycle being completed in one revolution of t ...

s. In 1925 a 1,600 cc

S.C.A.P. S.C.A.P. (Société de Construction Automobile Parisienne) was a French manufacturer of cars and proprietary engines, existing between 1912 and 1929. Products S.C.A.P mainly manufactured small four-cylinder engines, with capacities from 894 ...

-engined model appeared, available in two versions, the "''Tourisme''" and the "''Quatre Speciale''"

supercharged In an internal combustion engine, a supercharger compresses the intake gas, forcing more air into the engine in order to produce more power for a given displacement. The current categorisation is that a supercharger is a form of forced induct ...

. A six-cylinder car of 1,500 cc displacement was also offered. In October 1928 a sensation at the 22nd Paris Motor Show was the Bucciali TAV-6. Six years before the appearance of the Citroën Traction and more than two years before the launch of the

DKW F1 The DKW F1 was a small car produced by DKW (part of the Auto Union) between 1931 and 1932. It was launched at the Berlin Motor Show in February 1931. Oswald, Werner: Deutsche Autos 1920-1945, volume 2, p. 94: ''"Innerhalb von 6 Wochen sollten nic ...

, the Bucciali TAV-6 featured front-wheel drive. Another innovative concept which would only become familiar to most auto-industry observers several decades later was provided by the Sensaud de Lavaud infinitely variable automatic transmission. The car was exhibited on the Bucciali show stand in bare chassis form, enabling visitors to study the fwd drive-train with its enormous transversely mounted transmission, as well as the all-round independent suspension. Almost as eye catching in their own terms were the wheels which were elaborately sculpted from Alpax castings.Alpax was a Eutectic

aluminium Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. I ...

silicon Silicon is a chemical element with the symbol Si and atomic number 14. It is a hard, brittle crystalline solid with a blue-grey metallic luster, and is a tetravalent metalloid and semiconductor. It is a member of group 14 in the periodic tab ...

alloy used by several of the more innovative French auto-makers, but little known outside France. The car at the show sat on a wheelbase and was powered by a

Continental Continental may refer to: Places * Continent, the major landmasses of Earth * Continental, Arizona, a small community in Pima County, Arizona, US * Continental, Ohio, a small town in Putnam County, US Arts and entertainment * ''Continental'' (al ...

side-valve 2.4 litre engine. Later versions of the car would be offered with 6 or 8 cylinder engines. In the 1930s the company produced the ''Double Huit'', also a front-wheel drive model, which was powered by a pair of

straight-eight engine The straight-eight engine (also referred to as an inline-eight engine; abbreviated I8 or L8) is a piston engine with eight cylinders arranged in a straight line along the crankshaft. The number of cylinders and perfect primary and secondary engi ...

s mounted side by side. The last of the

prototype A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototyp ...

s took a

Voisin Voisin (French for "neighbour") may refer to: Companies *Avions Voisin, the French automobile company :*Voisin Laboratoire, a car manufactured by Avions Voisin *Voisin (aircraft), the French aircraft manufacturer * Voisin, a Lyon-based chocolat ...

12-cylinder engine. Very few of the front-wheel-drive Buccialis ever reached the road. While it is not known exactly how many of the TAV 12 models were produced, only three are known by automotive enthusiasts to still exist: one in the USA, one in France and one in Canada. The black Bucciali that still exists was rebuilt by Bruce Kelly with the help of Robert LeMire at Lake Country Classics in Saint Paul Minnesota.

References

*David Burgess Wise, ''The New Illustrated Encyclopedia of Automobiles''.

External links

Company history at RitzSite

Defunct motor vehicle manufacturers of France Front-wheel-drive vehicles Luxury motor vehicle manufacturers {{classicprw-auto-stub