Jay Leno Owns The Katharine Hepburn Bugatti And That's Not Even The Interesting Part

Jay Leno owns a lot of cars. In fact, Leno's car collection is worth $100 million by some estimates, and may be one of the 10 largest private car collections in the world. One of the cars parked in his famous Big Dog Garage is a unique Bugatti T38A (1926-1928) driven by Katherine Hepburn's character in the 1933 movie "Christopher Strong." But the fact that Ms. Hepburn once graced the driver's seat of this automobile isn't really what makes it unique. It so happens to be the first and only Bugatti ever to get a custom body built in America. In fact, the body was made by a different company altogether, known as the Murphy Body Co.

How the Bugatti got to America involved yet another car company, American Miller. That's because the chassis for the car wound up as part of a swap that was made so that Ettore Bugatti could get his hands on a couple of Miller Specials. After that, it would go through multiple owners before finding its way into Jay Leno's garage.

In the meantime, it managed to have a short movie career. "Christopher Strong" was the first one it appeared in. It may have also appeared briefly in the 1934 flick, "The Gay Divorcee." Its biggest, and probably last, role was in "Remember Last Night?," a 1935 mystery movie. If this nearly 100-year-old car could talk, it would probably have some wild stories to tell.

This particular Bugatti wasn't supposed to exist. But at a race in Europe, Ettore Bugatti noticed how well the American Miller cars were performing, and wanted to study them. So he traded racer Leon Durray a Type 35 Bugatti and a 38 chassis (known as chassis 38435) for two Miller Specials.

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

The Bugatti's engine was a 1990-cc 2.0-liter I-8 that could crank out a whopping 70 horsepower. It had a supercharger and each of its eight cylinders had three valves, one for intake and two for exhaust. It was a long car, with a wheelbase of 123 inches. It was a remarkable example of French engineering, not unlike these weird and beautiful vintage French cars.

This one-of-a-kind automobile would make its Hollywood debut in 1933 in the movie "Christopher Strong." The movie studio rented it to be driven by Katherine Hepburn's character, a modern, independent, female airplane pilot. There was a stunt in the film, in which the car would do a four-wheel spin. It has been claimed that Hepburn herself drove the car during this stunt, but we haven't been able to find any corroboration of that. 

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

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

The Murphy Roadster's film career wouldn't end with the Katherine Hepburn movie. A couple of years later, in 1935, the car would return to the silver screen in "Remember Last Night?" It would have even more screen time in this movie.

The poor car would be significantly modded for this movie. The steering wheel would be replaced, and the whole dashboard would be redone. Perhaps most egregiously, they stuck a Rolls-Royce emblem on the hood. That's strange, since they acknowledge that the car is a Bugatti in the film. One of the characters says, "They sent the Buhgahtti fer us," to which the other character responds, "The Bu-what?"

There are indications that the car could have been in "The Gay Divorcee," released in 1934. If it's the same car, it has far less screen time than it did in the other two movies, appearing towards the end. But you know what they say: there are no small roles, only small actors.

Jay Leno is about as well-known for his giant garage full of vintage cars as he is for his controversial yet highly-successful stint as host of "The Tonight Show." Apparently, several of those cars are classic Bugattis. That doesn't mean it was meant to be that he eventually would own the Hepburn Bugatti. In a 2001 Popular Mechanics article (via Google Books), Leno said he tries to avoid celebrity cars, since he "hates" how cars are sometimes valued because of who owned them. 

Of course, the 38435 was never actually owned by Katherine Hepburn, so maybe it's not technically a "celebrity car." Whatever the case, Leno came across this Bugatti "deteriorating in a lockup in Orange County," and decided he was interested. According to Leno, the lady who owned it wanted around $15 million for it, since a Bugatti Royale had recently sold for that much 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 offer. A few years later, he would own the car, and eventually have it restored.

Interestingly, one of the things missing from the car was its original wired wheels. Former owner Bunny Philips had swapped them with alloy wheels from his Bugatti 35B so that 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.