Yesteryear Y-45 Bugatti Royale Napoleon

Matchbox Models of Yesteryear Y45 Bugatti Royale Napoleon

The Y45-1 Bugatti Royale Napoleon was introduced in 1991 in the black with dark blue sides of Ettore Bugatti's own car the Coupe Napoleon which was the first of only six Napoleons ever built, It had a 14.7 litre (942ci) straight eight engine and it was 21 feet long (6.4m).
The Lesney model has Y45 on the baseplate but the inside of the roof glass is marked Y58 so there must have been a change in numbering before the model was released. As this car was the only one with a coupe type body it is impossible to recolour it and keep it authentic so to date it has not been recoloured and no further issues have been released.

Above: The Napoleon has a black body with dark blue bonnet sides, It was fitted with clear plastic windows which included the four roof windows in the passenger compartment and a seperately molded drivers windscreen. The interior can be a dark indigo-blue or a dark purple-blue and it had a black plastic grille insert. The car had a chromed baseplate and grille, headlights, front bumper, dashboard, fuel filler caps and wheels,The chromed dashboard was artistic licence on Lesney's part as the real car had a plain black dash which can best be described as agricultural.
The doorhandles, door step plates and windscreen frame were silver trimmed.

Above: Showing the fuel fillers mounted on either side of the spare wheel. Note that the wheels were 24 inches tall and were also the brake drums which can't have done the tyres much good as they would probably have cooked the tyres.