Jay Leno Owns the Katharine Hepburn Bugatti and That’s Not Even the Interesting Part – Jalopnik

Jay Leno owns a lot of cars. By some estimates, Leno’s car collection is worth as much as $100 million, and it could be one of the ten largest private car collections in the world. One of the cars parked in his famous Big Dog Garage is a one-of-a-kind Bugatti T38A (1926-1928), driven by Katherine Hepburn’s character in the 1933 film “Christopher Strong.” But the fact that Mrs. Hepburn once graced the driver’s seat of this car doesn’t exactly make it unique. It happens to be the first and only Bugatti to ever have a custom body built in America. In fact, the body was made by a completely different company, known as the Murphy Body Co.

How the Bugatti reached America involved another car company, American Miller. That’s because the car’s chassis ended up as part of a trade made so Ettore Bugatti could get his hands on a pair of Miller Specials. It would then go through several owners before finding its way into Jay Leno’s garage.

In the meantime, it managed to have a brief film career. ‘Christopher Strong’ was the first in which it appeared. It may also have appeared briefly in the 1934 film, ‘The Gay Divorcee’. His biggest and probably last role was in “Remember Last Night?”, a 1935 mystery film. If this nearly 100-year-old car could talk, it would probably have some wild stories to tell.

Of course, a car needs more than just the chassis, so Durray had Murphy Body Co. of Pasadena to build the body for it, which would lead to the car becoming known as the “Murphy Roadster”. This would also earn it the status of the only Bugatti ever equipped with an American-built custom body. Of course, this was all before the car would ever be associated with Mrs. Hepburn.

The Bugatti’s engine was a 2.0-liter I-8 of 1990 cc that could deliver no less than 70 hp. It had a supercharger and each of the eight cylinders had three valves, one for the intake and two for the exhaust. It was a long car, with a wheelbase of 123 inches. It was a remarkable example of French engineering, on par with these weird and wonderful vintage French cars.

It’s hard to imagine a movie studio putting its great talent behind the wheel for a risky stunt. What’s not in dispute is that Katherine Hepburn posed for an iconic PR photo while sitting in the cockpit of the Murphy Roadster, forever associating the car with her, even though there’s no evidence she ever owned it.

The film studio was not kind to this special Bugatti. Apparently they chose to take out all the wooden floorboards and then lost them. They also added a rumble seat, removed the lid hinges and installed a rear window. They even added a Hispano Suiza emblem to the hood. That’s some pretty harsh treatment of a rental car, and we’re afraid Enterprise will withhold our deposit if we don’t vacuum their car before returning it.

The poor car would be significantly modified for this film. The steering wheel would be replaced and the entire dashboard would be redone. Perhaps most egregiously, they put a Rolls-Royce emblem on the hood. That’s strange, since in the movie they acknowledge that the car is a Bugatti. One of the characters says, “They sent the Buhgahtti fer us,” to which the other character replies, “The Bu-wat?”

There are indications that the car could be present in “The Gay Divorcee”, released in 1934. If it is the same car, it has much less screen time than in the other two films, which appear near the end. But you know what they say: there are no small roles, only small actors.

Of course, 38435 was never owned by Katherine Hepburn, so maybe it’s not technically a “celebrity car.” Anyway, Leno came across this Bugatti “in disrepair during a lockup in Orange County,” and decided he was interested. According to Leno, the lady who owned it wanted about $15 million for it, as a Bugatti Royale had recently sold for that amount at auction. Jay knew it was worth a fraction of that amount so told the lady to advertise it and he would beat the highest bid. A few years later he would own the car and eventually have it restored.

Interestingly enough, one of the things missing from the car were the original wire wheels. Former owner Bunny Philips had swapped them with alloy wheels from his Bugatti 35B so he could race the 35B at Indy. The original wheels and supercharger would be restored and Leno would show the car twice at Pebble Beach.