Meo Costantini in the cockpit of the Bugatti Type 35 that he would drive to a 4th-place finish in the ACF’s 1925 French Grand Prix at Montlhéry.
One day in 1923, Ettore Bugatti met Bartolomeo “Meo” Costantini, an encounter that would change both their lives. The suave Costantini, who was one of his country’s highly decorated First World War fighter pilots, with six enemy kills to his credit, had returned to motor racing after the hostilities. And Ettore Bugatti was the diviner of those beautiful road cars that he delighted in putting to the ultimate test in motor racing.
Soon after they met, Bugatti offered Meo a job, and so began over a decade in which Costantini started as a Molsheim test driver, became one of its works racers and eventually moved on to become the company’s motor sport director. He became an intimate member of motor racing’s Camelot, one of its most accomplished technical experts and gifted talent spotters, close to Ettore and his son Jean.
