Pur Sang Hand Built Bugatti Type 35

I first heard about Pur Sang a couple of years ago during Autoclasica, the biggest classic car show in South America. Since then, paying the shop a visit was high on my bucket list, and last week I finally got the chance to cross it off. Pur Sang is located in Parana, a city of 300,000 people located in the north-east region of Argentina. Pur Sang is the place where time has stopped and you can find the single most talented and passionate group of people building cars from the likes of Bugatti and Alfa Romeo, just as they were made in the 1920s.

Passion is a key element in the life of Jorge Anadon, owner of Pur Sang. At that time, he founded Pur Sang with the purpose of building exact replicas of the Bugatti Type 35. The life of a brand new Bugatti Type 35 starts as mixture of sand and aluminum blocks in Pur Sang’s foundry workshop. The moulds are made by hand in a special sand and then painted to protect them from the heat of the molten aluminium. All cast parts are made using this process, from the rims to the engine block. Then, these rough pieces go to different workshops for expert finishing at the hands of true artisans.

I had the chance to be guided through the entire facility by Jorge Anadon himself. Apart from the process and the craftsmanship, what impressed me the most was how Pur Sang operates. The sense of family was immediately apparent. Everyone calls each other by their first name, knows where each other comes from, what they are doing and what they need to complete their task. He’s been working with a hammer to mould all the chassis that came from this workshop over the last 30 years. He can proudly say that many cars have his stamp. Chassis are hand formed over a wood buck, again an exact replica of the build process.

By the end of the process you will find the most amazing puzzle waiting to be assembled piece by piece, not only with skill but a lot of passion too. Every year a few brand new type 35 Bugattis are born in this small town in the middle of South America.

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