Please help me identify this boattail roadster

[Guest Jfukuro]

I found this snapshot some years ago in the Boston area. On the back it says "Here is my anvil car that I told you about." Is this a Bugatti? Please help with make, model and year. Thanks

[CarlLaFong]

Amilcar?

[Guest Casper Friedrich]

Yes, 1924-29 Amilcar CGS "Poor man's Bugatti" Four-cylinder sidevalve with only two main bearings.

[Guest Jfukuro]

Thank you, Folks! Now that you say "Amilcar," it's clear that that was what this jodhpurred lady was trying to say - not "Anvil-car!" Here is a scan of the reverse of the snapshot.

[West Peterson]

I think if you decipher her writing closely, she actually wrote Amil-car.

That is the car in which the famous Isadora Duncan died. Her long scarf, which was wrapped around her neck, was loose and got caught in the rear wheel knock-off hub.

[Guest Jfukuro]

I wonder if the car was popular among the young 'flappers' of the day. I had always thought that Isadora Duncan was in a Bugatti when she died - but I see that modern scholarship has shown that it was an Amilcar. I know that it was imported and sold by the German car company Maybach in New York, but I don't know how popular it was here in the USA.

[trimacar]

Fascinating story, actually, she was with a man whose nickname confused the issue on the Bugatti reference, from Wikipedia :

Tomb of Isadora Duncan at Père Lachaise Cemetery

Duncan's fondness for flowing scarves was a contributing factor to her death in an automobile accident in Nice, France, at the age of 50. The shawl was hand-painted silk by the Russian-born artist Roman Chatov, and was a gift from her friend Mary Desti, the mother of American film director Preston Sturges. Desti, who saw Duncan off, reported that she had asked Duncan to wear a cape because it was cold out, and the car was an open-air one, but Duncan would only agree to wear the shawl.[32]

On the night of September 14, 1927, Duncan was a passenger in the Amilcar automobile of a French-Italian mechanic Benoît Falchetto, whom she had nicknamed "Buggatti" [sic].[citation needed] This is the reason that many writers have erroneously said she was killed in a Bugatti car.

Before getting into the car, she reportedly said to her friend Desti and some companions, "Adieu, mes amis. Je vais à la gloire!" ("Farewell, my friends. I go to glory!"), however, according to American novelist Glenway Wescott, who was in Nice at the time and visited Duncan's body in the morgue, Desti admitted that she had lied about Duncan's last words. Instead, she told Wescott, Duncan said, "Je vais à l'amour" ("I am off to love"). Desti considered this embarrassing, as it suggested that she and Falchetto were going to her hotel for a tryst. Her silk scarf, a gift from Desti, draped around her neck, became entangled around the open-spoked wheels and rear axle, breaking her neck.[1] Desti claims that she called out to warn Duncan about the shawl almost immediately after the car left. Desti brought Duncan to the hospital, where she was declared dead.[32]

As The New York Times noted in its obituary: "Isadora Duncan, the American dancer, tonight met a tragic death at Nice on the Riviera. According to dispatches from Nice, Miss Duncan was hurled in an extraordinary manner from an open automobile in which she was riding and instantly killed by the force of her fall to the stone pavement."[33] Other sources described her death as resulting from strangulation, noting that she was almost decapitated by the sudden tightening of the scarf around her neck.[34] The accident gave rise to Gertrude Stein's mordant remark that "affectations can be dangerous".[35] At her death, Duncan was a Soviet citizen. Her will was the first of a Soviet citizen to be probated in the U.S.[citation needed]

[Guest prs519]

Talk about Murphy's law. I guess whatever can happen, eventually will!